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Arctic Plastic Coasts: 7 years investigating beach litter in the Arctic through citizen science
Summary
Researchers conducted a seven-year citizen science survey of beach litter across Arctic coastlines from Jan Mayen to Svalbard and Greenland, finding that marine litter on Svalbard and Jan Mayen is dominated by material from oceanic fisheries while Greenland's plastic pollution is primarily from local sources.
The Arctic Marine Litter program started in 2017 and since then dozens of beaches have been surveyed for marine litter, from Jan Mayen to Svalbard and Greenland. The focus of the program is macro litter and the program has multiple aims: 1) investigating the types and sources of Arctic beach litter; 2) involving local arctic coastal people in the surtveys; 3) raising awareness; 4) taking platsic objects off beaches and thereby preventing these form becoming microplastics; 5) utilzing Citizen science. The results show that in many places, in particular Svalbard and Jan Mayen, marine litter is mostly from oceanic fisheries, while in Greenland most of the plastics was from local sources. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/551464/document
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