Floating macrolitter leaked from Europe into the ocean

Date

2021-06-01

Author

González-Fernández, Daniel
Cózar, Andrés
Hanke, Georg
Viejo, Josué
Morales-Caselles, Carmen
Bakiu, Rigers
Barceló, Damià
Bessa, Filipa
Bruge, Antoine
Cabrera, María
Castro-Jiménez, Javier
Constant, Mel
Crosti, Roberto
Galletti, Yuri
Kıdeyş, Ahmet Erkan
Machitadze, Nino
Pereira de Brito, Joana
Pogojeva, Maria
Ratola, Nuno
Rigueira, Júlia
Rojo-Nieto, Elisa
Savenko, Oksana
Schöneich-Argent, Rosanna I.
Siedlewicz, Grzegorz
Suaria, Giuseppe
Tourgeli, Myrto

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Riverine systems act as converging pathways for discarded litter within drainage basins, becoming key elements in gauging the transfer of mismanaged waste into the ocean. However, riverine litter data are scarce and biased towards microplastics, generally lacking information about larger items. Based on the first ever database of riverine floating macrolitter across Europe, we have estimated that between 307 and 925 million litter items are released annually from Europe into the ocean. The plastic fraction represented 82% of the observed litter, mainly fragments and single-use items (that is, bottles, packaging and bags). Our modelled estimates show that a major portion of the total litter loading is routed through small-sized drainage basins (<100 km2), indicating the relevance of small rivers, streams and coastal run-off. Moreover, the major contribution of high-income countries to the macrolitter inputs suggests that reducing ocean pollution cannot be achieved only by improving waste management, but also requires changing consumption habits and behaviour to curb waste generation at source. The inability of countries with well-developed recovery systems to control the leakage of waste into the environment further supports the need to regulate the production and use of plastic on a global scale.

Subject Keywords

Catchments, Marine pollution, Waste management

URI

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85107937572&origin=inward
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/91205

Journal

Nature Sustainability

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00722-6

Collections

Graduate School of Marine Sciences, Article

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Citation Formats

D. González-Fernández et al., “Floating macrolitter leaked from Europe into the ocean,” Nature Sustainability, pp. 474–483, 2021, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85107937572&origin=inward.