Tracing the source of marine debris on the beaches of northern New South Wales, Australia: The Bottles on Beaches program

Smith, Stephen; Banister, Kelsey; Fraser, Nicola; Edgar, Robert J.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.11.022

Cited by 48 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Second, the tendency for goose barnacles to be less common on newly manufactured bottles than older bottles suggests that such items have not been at sea for very long, consistent with them being dumped from ships. Finally, the top 3 manufacturers of bottles reaching Inaccessible Island (Table 2) are the same as those responsible for foreign-sourced bottles stranding on the east coast of Australia, which probably derive from ships (13).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…As a result, the proportion of bottles among floating debris increases from coastal to oceanic waters (17). Because many bottles bear marks that indicate both the country and date of manufacture, they are a valuable tool to infer debris sources, especially from distant regions (13). Numerous websites report that plastic bottles last 450 y in the environment, but this estimate is necessarily based on a broad extrapolation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bottles are classed as general or mixed-source items because they could derive from ships or land-based sources (15). However, by identifying the place and approximate date of manufacture, we can make strong inferences about the origins of bottles manufactured in distant countries or regions of the world (13). For Asian debris, PlasticAdrift suggests that a small proportion of the bottles originating from India and Southeast Asian countries might reach the South Atlantic from the Indian Ocean via the Agulhas Current, but this will take 3 to 5 y. Debris originating from China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea is mostly entrained into the North Pacific, with very little chance of drifting to the South Atlantic.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there is little robust evidence to support this estimate, particularly for oceanic regions. Some studies have shown a decrease in debris at remote sites since MARPOL V came into force (11), but other studies have reported continued stranding of debris from distant countries, which typically is attributed to shipping (12,13). Much of the debris stranding at islands in the Atlantic Ocean is fishery-related (7), and Lebreton et al (14) concluded that marine inputs accounted for a higher proportion of floating debris in the North Pacific garbage patch than expected from models of marine debris sources.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…), it is hard to infer the origin of waste categories such as packaging for food, drinks, and domestic goods (cleaning and sanitary products), which could derive from either ships or land-based sources (15,16). Plastic bottles are a useful tracer of such debris because they often have labels or other distinctive features that indicate their country of manufacture (13,14). Many bottles also are date stamped (14), providing an estimate of the maximum time they have had to disperse at sea.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Rapid increase in Asian bottles in the South Atlantic Ocean indicates major debris inputs from ships

Ryan

Dilley

Ronconi

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

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Most plastic debris floating at sea is thought to come from land-based sources, but there is little direct evidence to support this assumption. Since 1984, stranded debris has been recorded along the west coast of Inaccessible Island, a remote, uninhabited island in the central South Atlantic Ocean that has a very high macrodebris load (∼5 kg·m−1). Plastic drink bottles show the fastest growth rate, increasing at 15% per year compared with 7% per year for other debris types. In 2018, we examined 2,580 plastic bottles and other containers (one-third of all debris items) that had accumulated on the coast, and a further 174 bottles that washed ashore during regular monitoring over the course of 72 d (equivalent to 800 bottles·km−1·y−1). The oldest container was a high-density polyethylene canister made in 1971, but most were polyethylene terephthalate drink bottles of recent manufacture. Of the bottles that washed up during our survey, 90% were date-stamped within 2 y of stranding. In the 1980s, two-thirds of bottles derived from South America, carried 3,000 km by the west wind drift. By 2009, Asia had surpassed South America as the major source of bottles, and by 2018, Asian bottles comprised 73% of accumulated and 83% of newly arrived bottles, with most made in China. The rapid growth in Asian debris, mainly from China, coupled with the recent manufacture of these items, indicates that ships are responsible for most of the bottles floating in the central South Atlantic Ocean, in contravention of International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships regulations.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rapid increase in Asian bottles in the South Atlantic Ocean indicates major debris inputs from ships

Ryan

Dilley

Ronconi

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

131

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A new hotspot of macro-litter in the Rutland Island, South Andaman, India: menace from IORC

Shankar

Purti²,

Ramakrishnan

et al. 2023

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Thirteen sandy beaches of remote Rutland Island were divided into three zones to identify the litter pollution, their source, pathway of plastic transport, to determine the level of macro litter contamination, and its impact on coastal biota. The total area surveyed was 0.52 km 2 (5,20,020.79 m 2 ), and the total number of litter items enumerated was 3,17,565 belonging to twenty-seven distinct litter types. The beaches in Zone II and Zone III were clean and Zone I were very dirty. The maximum litter density (1.03 items/ m 2 ) was observed in Photo Nallah 1 and Photo Nallah 2, whereas the lowest (0.09 items/ m 2 ) was observed in Jahaji beach. The primary contributor of litter on Rutland's beaches was plastics (60%-99%), presumed to originate from the Indian Ocean Rim Countries (IORC). A collective solid waste management initiative by the IORC is essential in preventing littering on remote islands. IntroductionSixty to ninety-nine million tons of litter are disposed into the environment each year and a predictive assessment articulates that the quantity is likely to increase threefold by 2060 (Lebreton and Andrady 2019). The marine litter was classi ed into macro (> 2.5cm to 1m), meso (5mm to 2.5cm), and microplastics (< 5mm) based on their size. Macro litter was further categorized based on its origin as land-derived or oceanic (Galgani et al. 2015; GESAMP 2020). Land-derived litter is associated with agricultural, industrial, and recreational activities. In contrast, ocean-derived litter is typically associated with commercial shipping, sheries, and recreational boating. 192 coastal countries are predicted to create 275 million metric tonnes of plastic garbage, with large volumes (4.8-12.7 million metric tonnes) entering marine systems (Cheshire et al. 2009;Jambeck et al. 2016). A voluminous quantity of these plastics enters marine systems since 40% of the global population (80 persons/km 2 ) live within one hundred kilometers of the coastlines, posing a severe threat to the marine faunal diversity (Gall and Thompson 2015;Galgani et al. 2015;Cavalcante et al. 2020). Consequently, mid-ocean garbage patches, plastic deposition on remote islands, entanglement, plastic ingestion, and mortality of marine animals have been increased globally (Miralles et al. 2018;Rodríguez-Díaz et al. 2020;Kaviarasan et al. 2020).Multiple factors in uence the prevalence of litter on beaches, including the location and topography of the beach, the existence of rivers and streams, oods, and winds (Ryan et al. 2018). Sandy beaches are often assumed to be signi cant sinks for oating litter, and their occurrence may be detrimental to biotic communities, and turtle nesting sites (Nelms et al. 2015).Once plastic litter reaches the vast expanse of the ocean, it may either be deposited on the adjacent coast or carried long distances (due to its low density) by the wind and current patterns. Plastic litter may get stranded on open ocean Islands during this transport, and secluded island systems may serve as a prospective basin (Lavers and Bond ...

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Baseline and power analyses for the assessment of beach litter reductions in the European OSPAR region

Schulz

Walvoort

Barry

et al. 2019

Environmental Pollution

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Tracing the source of marine debris on the beaches of northern New South Wales, Australia: The Bottles on Beaches program

Cited by 48 publications

References 32 publications

Rapid increase in Asian bottles in the South Atlantic Ocean indicates major debris inputs from ships

Rapid increase in Asian bottles in the South Atlantic Ocean indicates major debris inputs from ships

A new hotspot of macro-litter in the Rutland Island, South Andaman, India: menace from IORC

Baseline and power analyses for the assessment of beach litter reductions in the European OSPAR region

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