Emission, Transport and Retention of Floating Marine Macro-Litter (Plastics): The Role of Baltic Harbor and Sailing Festivals

Abstract

Every year, harbor and sailing festivals attract close to 20 million visitors in the Baltic Sea region, but their consequences on marine litter pollution are still unknown. We combine field studies with model simulations and literature reviews to quantify the annual emissions of floating macro-litter and to assess its retention in estuaries and role in Baltic Sea pollution. Results focusing on Hanse Sail in Rostock and Kiel Week are extrapolated to the entire Baltic Sea region. After the Hanse Sail 2018, the harbor pollution amounted to about 950 floating macro-litter particles/km²; 85–90% were plastics. We calculated an emission between 0.24 and 3 particles per 1000 visitors, depending on the year and the waste management system. About 0.02% of all waste generated during a festival ends up in the harbor water. The Hanse Sails contributes less than 1% to the total annual macro-litter emissions in the Warnow estuary. Model simulations indicate that over 99% of the emitted litter is trapped in the estuary. Therefore, Hanse Sails are not relevant to Baltic Sea pollution. The extrapolated Baltic-Sea-wide annual emissions are between 4466 and (more likely) 55,830 macro-litter particles. The over-30 harbor and sailing festivals contribute an estimated <0.05% to the total annual macro-litter emissions in the Baltic Sea region.

Comparative Analysis of Riverine Plastic Pollution Combining Citizen Science, Remote Sensing and Water Quality Monitoring Techniques

“…Still, the microplastic fragments contribute just to 2-33%, as microfibres dominate in the sediments within the water system of the Tisza [29][30][31]33]. As the MaPs are widely distributed on the globe but their spatial distribution could change in time, a citizen science approach has been increasingly applied to study marine [4,34] and riverine litter [5,35,36]. The increasing awareness of MaP pollution in the Tisza River initiated the foundation of the Plastic Cup, which has organized international river cleanup actions in the Tisza River Basin since 2013.…”

Comparative Analysis of Riverine Plastic Pollution Combining Citizen Science, Remote Sensing and Water Quality Monitoring Techniques

“…Still, the microplastic fragments contribute just to 2-33%, as micro-fibers dominate in the sediments within the water system of the Tisza [30,34,35]. As the MaPs are widely distributed on the globe, but their spatial distribution could change in time, a citizen science approach has been increasingly applied to study marine [4,36] and riverine litter [5,37,38]. The increasing awareness of MaP pollution in the Tisza River initiated the foundation of the Plastic Cup, which has organized international river cleanup actions in the Tisza River Basin since 2013.…”