Quantification and Composition of Solid waste abundance on the beaches of Karachi, Pakistan

The problem of the marine litter accumulation and their consequence extended and face around the whole world with no easy solution in the coming years. The situation is now going more worst that the plastic which contribute 80% of the total solid waste in all the beaches provides ideal environment for the opportunistic microorganism to grow and established a novel means of spatial and temporal transport for microorganisms diagonally coastal areas. In the present paper baseline study of abundance, composition and nature of the solid waste litter on the beaches of Karachi, Pakistan were investigated. During the study plastic litter were qualified as the highest debris among all the beaches. The abundance of debris by weight was higher in Clifton followed by sandspit and Ghizri creek respectively. Thermacol / Styrofoam recoded as the second largest contributor of marine debris. The major contributing factor of debris abundance are beach visitors i.e tourism and recreation activities and land based sources including waste from creeks along debris provide a major inputs of pollution in beaches.