Beach Litter: comparing the most abundant litter items on European beaches and three beaches in Tuscany
By Tosca Ballerini
The latest Marine Litter Watch – Europe’s Beach Litter Assessment by the European Environment Agency and the European Topic Centre Biodiversity and Ecosystems (ETC BE) came out on 3 July. Comparison with the results of the Citizen Science project ‘Anthropic Profiles – Plastic as a measure of our time’ during which beach litter was monitored on three beaches in Tuscany shows many similarities.
The problem
Pollution by plastic and other chemical pollutants is outside the safe operating space of planetary boundaries for mankind. Waste, particularly plastic, accumulates in aquatic systems, especially on coastlines. Every year, 11 million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, making up 80% of marine litter.
The European Strategy on Plastics (COM/2018/028final) set a 30% reduction target for marine litter and the Single Use Plastics Directive (SUPD, 2019/904/EU) set a target for EU Member States to reduce the impact of certain single use plastics (SUP) products in the environment by reducing or banning their use. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/EC) aims to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of EU marine waters. To this end, and with regard to beach litter, the Marine Strategy has set a threshold value of 20 litter/100 m of beach, estimating that this value can reduce the damage of beach litter to a sufficiently precautionary level.
Europe’s most abundant beach litter
The European Environment Agency’s Marine Litter Watch (MLW) initiative involves citizens in the collection of litter and data on European beaches. Building on previous findings, this report analyses 2022 data in the context of EU efforts to tackle plastic pollution.
The MLW database provides essential information on the state of beach litter pollution in Europe. It complements the monitoring programmes of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and supports the assessment of EU policies, such as the Zero Pollution Action Plan and the Single Use Plastics (UPR) Directive. It includes contributions from more than 60 communities and organisations, which have recorded nearly 1.5 million litterings from European beaches over the past decade.
The analysis presented in the latest report Marine Litter Watch – Europe’s Beach Litter Assessment reveals that at a European level 86% of the registered objects are plastic and that single-use plastic products (SUP) account for 52% of the total waste. Cigarette butts are a significant problem, accounting for 23% of litter. Fishing-related items are less common, but significant in the North-East Atlantic. The Black Sea is the most polluted, followed by the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. Approximately 90% of the sites surveyed exceed the threshold set by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive for good environmental status GHG for beached litter.
The most abundant beach litter on three Tuscan beaches
As part of the ‘Anthropic Profiles’ project, between November 2022 and July 2023 11,237 litter was collected and classified on three beaches in Tuscany in the municipalities of Marina di Vecchiano, Livorno and Rosignano Marittimo. A sampling site was identified at each beach and three monitoring sessions were carried out at each site following the Marine Strategy Framework Directive protocol.
The analysis reveals that 88.39% of the waste to be found is plastic, while single-use plastic products represent (SUP items) 36.96% of the total waste. The most abundant wastes in this study are: cigarette butts (22.69%), plastic beverage bottles (4.38%, all sizes combined), plastic beverage caps/covers (2.89%), plastic cotton bud sticks (2.79%), crisp packets/candy wrappers (1.61%).
A median litter abundance of 1,266 objects/100 m of beach was found in the study. At all sites and during all monitoring, the Marine Strategy threshold for good environmental status GES was exceeded.
The solutions
Scientific evidence shows that upstream and downstream interventions, such as optimising waste management, removal technologies and improving circularity, are not sufficient to contain plastic pollution in the short, medium or long term. To tackle plastic pollution, it is urgent to implement upstream actions to reduce primary plastic production.
In parallel to actions at international and national level, municipalities can significantly limit single-use plastic pollution on their territory through the development of integrated strategies that include public procurement, exemplary practices and territorial animation.
As part of the Profili Antropici project, in addition to the monitoring of beach litter, we identified the environmental measures implemented by the three municipalities on the Tuscan coast to tackle single-use plastic (SUP) items and highlighted further possible environmental measures to reduce plastic pollution at local level.
The results of the study were presented at the Tenth International Symposium ‘Mediterranean Coastal Monitoring: Problems and Measurement Techniques’ held in Livorno from 11 to 13 June 2024 at the Mediterranean Museum of Natural History Museo di Storia Naturale del Mediterraneo – Provincia di Livorno and organised by the Institute of BioEconomy of the National Research Council (CNR-IBE) in collaboration with the Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology.
The full study by Tosca Ballerini, Yuri Galletti, Daniela Tacconi (2024) ‘Plastic pollution on the Tuscan coast: environmental measures municipalities can put in place to reduce it’ will be published in the coming months in the conference proceedings.
The Profili Antropici (Anthropic Profiles) project was conducted by Semi di Scienza in collaboration with Sons of the ocean and was funded by the 8 per mille of the Chiesa Valdese. Throughout the project there was an active and positive collaboration with the environmental councillors of the municipalities of Marina di vecchiano, Comune di Livorno, and Comune di Rosignano Marittimo.
Earth Day 2024’s theme is Planet vs. Plastic: what are the issues related to the use of plastic materials and how to solve them?
By Tosca Ballerini, published on Renewable Matter on 22/04/2024
The industrial production of plastic began around 1950 and has increased exponentially in the years since, substantially exceeding that of any other manufactured material. A 2020 study published in the scientific journal, Nature, shows that the weight of all plastics produced (8,000 million tons) is twice that of the biomass of all animals on Earth (4,000 million tons). Four years later, the weight of plastics has exceeded 10,000 million tons and, according to calculations made by the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, following this trajectory, in 2040 it will exceed 20,000 tons.
Over the same period of time, scientists have observed an “unprecedented” decline in biodiversity with about 1 million animal and plant species now threatened with extinction, many of them within a few decades, a number never before reached in human history. This biodiversity crisis has many causes, including the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, but it is also greatly exacerbated by pollution and global warming. The United Nations have adopted the term “Triple Planetary Crisis” to describe these three intersecting global environmental crises: pollution, climate crisis, biodiversity loss and/or ecological crisis.
The production of plastic materials is considered by scientists to be the main indicator of plastic pollution. In fact, a study published in the journal Science estimated that less than 30 percent of all items made from plastics since 1950 are still in use, about 7 percent have been recycled, 10 percent incinerated, and the remainder, just under 60 percent, have been discarded and are now in landfills or dispersed in natural environments, terrestrial and marine.
The toxicity debt
When scientists talk about “plastics”, they are not only referring to plastic polymers, but they also include other chemicals that make up synthetic fibers and chemical additives used to achieve desired qualities (e.g., heat resistance, flexibility, etc.), many of which are toxic to living organisms. The fragmentation of plastics in the environment, combined with the release of chemical additives from these plastics, leads to a potential future spike in the release of toxic compounds (including chemical additives and nanoplastics).
According to a study published in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology, we are already experiencing a period of toxicity debt closely linked to the long-term effects of plastic material degradation and pollutant release. According to the authors, this “debt” is contracted by the presence in the environment of large amounts of plastic currently exposed to degradation and which will still undergo decomposition processes and will release toxic compounds for many years to come. Thus, it is not a question of future plastic pollution, but of the current state of pollution from plastics already present in the environment, to whose damage the impact of any future pollution will evidently be added.
Diseases and social and economic costs associated with plastics
“Plastics contain many hazardous, endocrine-disrupting chemicals that leach and contaminate humans and the environment. These chemicals disturb the body’s hormone systems and can contribute to cancer, diabetes, reproductive disorders, neurological impairments of developing fetuses and children, and death” explains to Renewable MatterLeonardo Trasande M.D., M.P.P., of NYU Grossman School of Medicine and NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in New York, N.Y.
Despite these negative effects on human health, many states that base their economies on fossil fuel extraction are reluctant to include provisions in the Global plastics treaty that would limit the primary production of plastics, more than 99 percent of which are made with chemicals from fossil fuels.
To accurately inform about the trade-offs involved in the continued reliance on plastics production as a source of economic productivity in the United States, Trasande and colleagues conducted a study, published in January 2024 in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, in which they calculated the disease burden (i.e., the burden a disease has on a population in terms of mortality, disability, social and economic costs) and attributable costs due to chemicals used in plastics materials in the United States in 2018. “Our study found that plastics contribute substantially to disease and associated social costs in the United States, about $250 billion in 2018 alone. These costs are equivalent to 1.22 percent of Gross Domestic Product” Trasande tells Renewable Matter.
The expert explains that the methodology used in the study can be extrapolated to global disease burdens that still do not sufficiently incorporate environmental exposures with substantial evidence of causation. “The Global Plastics Treaty should reduce the use of chemicals of concern, particularly PFAS, bisphenols, flame retardants and phthalates,” Trasande concludes.
Chemicals of concern in all types of plastics
Published in mid-March 2024, the State-of-the-science on Plastic Chemicals report provides a thorough and comprehensive overview of the current scientific understanding of the chemical aspects of plastics, including hazards, functionalities, uses, production volumes, and regulatory status of plastic chemicals. The report summarizes scientific information on more than 16,000 chemicals potentially used or present in plastic materials and products, of which only 6 percent are currently subject to international regulation, although a much greater number are produced in large quantities and have high exposure potential.
More than 4200 plastic chemicals are of concern because they are persistent, bioaccumulative, mobile, and/or toxic (PBMT). Over 1300 chemicals of concern are known to be marketed for use in plastics and 29–66% of the chemicals used or found in well-studied plastic types are of concern. This means that chemicals of concern may be present in all types of plastics. The report makes four recommendations: regulate chemicals in plastics comprehensively and efficiently; require transparency on which chemicals are used; simplify the composition of plastics so they are safe and sustainable; and promote technical and regulatory capacity to create safer and more sustainable plastics.
Reduction of primary plastic polymers is urgently needed
The UN Global Plastics Treaty, currently under negotiation, aims to reduce plastic pollution. But how to achieve that goal? “As a materials engineer, I recognize the merits of the plastics industry. However, we are not using it smartly,” Francesca De Falco, a researcher at the International Marine Litter Research Unit at the University of Plymouth and a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, tells Renewable Matter. “As a Coalition, we have identified the five most important pathways for reducing primary plastic polymers in order to reduce impacts on human and environmental health: reduce production of non-essential ones; reduce production of unsafe and unsustainable ones; work on transparency and accountability of producers; improve compliance mechanisms; and follow a sectoral approach,” says De Falco illustrating the recent Policy Brief Primary Plastic Polymers: Urgently Needed Upstream Reduction.
The researcher also explains that in the latest draft that will be used as the basis for the next round of negotiations, the reduction option is not always included and, when it is, it’s often between many parentheses. “It is important that these reduction options stand, that global reduction targets are clarified, and that there are mechanisms to ensure their implementation”.” To reduce plastic pollution,” De Falco explains, “downstream solutions, while important, cannot solve the problem on their own. Reducing plastic pollution requires working on multiple fronts simultaneously and the reduction of primary plastic polymers is a key measure.”