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Beach litter in three South American countries: A baseline for restarting monitoring and cleaning after COVID-19 closure
Summary
Researchers surveyed beach litter on 25 South American beaches before and after COVID-19 closures, finding that cigarette butts were the most common item while plastic and organic debris patterns varied by country. The study establishes a baseline for ongoing coastal monitoring and provides region-specific data to guide cleanup and policy efforts.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused that most countries established the closure of many beaches, affecting the scientific monitoring of thousands of coastal sectors. This article shows the status of beach litter in South America before and after COVID-19 closure. The data were obtained during the years 2019, 2020 and 2022 on 25 beaches using a technique BLAT-QQ. The results show that cigarette butts were the most frequent type of litter, meanwhile Brazil should improve cleanliness of general gross litter and gross polystyrene. Colombia gross vegetation litter and small vegetation litter, and Ecuador organic litter from animals. The results shown in qualitative and quantitative manner facilitate their understanding for managers, scholars and activists interested on beach litter monitoring. This baseline is useful to analyse regional and worldwide marine litter trends with the purpose to start or restart monitoring of tourist beaches from a science-based method.