Floating macrolitter leaked from Europe into the ocean

Daniel González-Fernández (1) , Andrés Cózar (1) , Georg Hanke (2) , Josué Viejo (1) , Carmen Morales-Caselles (1) , Rigers Bakiu (3) , Damià Barceló (4, 5) , Filipa Bessa (6) , Antoine Bruge (7) , María Cabrera , Javier Castro-Jiménez (8, 9, 10) , Mel Constant (11) , Roberto Crosti (12) , Yuri Galletti (13) , Ahmet Kideys (14) , Nino Machitadze (15) , Joana Pereira de Brito , Maria Pogojeva (16) , Nuno Ratola (17) , Júlia Rigueira , Elisa Rojo-Nieto (18, 19) , Oksana Savenko , Rosanna Schöneich-Argent (20) , Grzegorz Siedlewicz (21) , Giuseppe Suaria , Myrto Tourgeli (22)

1 UCA - Universidad de Cádiz
2 JRC - European Commission - Joint Research Centre [Ispra]
3 Agricultural University of Tirana
4 IDAEA - Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research
5 Catalan Institute for Water Research (ICRA)
6 UC - University of Coimbra [Portugal]
7 Surfrider Foundation Europe
8 MIO - Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie
9 IFREMER - Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer
10 IRD - Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
11 CEFREM - Centre de Formation et de Recherche sur les Environnements Méditérranéens
12 ISPRA - Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale
13 Institute of Biophysics
14 METU - Middle East Technical University [Ankara]
15 Tbilisi State University
16 The State Oceanographic Institute
17 LEPABE - Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy
18 UFZ - Helmholtz Zentrum für Umweltforschung = Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research
19 University of Cadiz
20 University of Oldenburg
21 IO-PAN - Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences
22 University of the Aegean

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.

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Daniel González-Fernández, Andrés Cózar, Georg Hanke, Josué Viejo, Carmen Morales-Caselles, et al.. Floating macrolitter leaked from Europe into the ocean. Nature Sustainability, 2021, 4 (6), pp.474-483. ⟨10.1038/s41893-021-00722-6⟩. ⟨hal-03662054⟩