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Plastic pollution on the Baltic beaches of Kaliningrad region, Russia
Summary
Researchers surveyed microplastic contamination on Baltic Sea beaches in Russia's Kaliningrad region between 2015 and 2016, finding 1.3 to 36.3 items per kg dry sediment with foamed plastic predominating, and detecting no clear difference in contamination levels between high- and low-traffic beach sites.
Contamination of sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea in Kaliningrad region is evaluated on the base of surveys carried out from June 2015 to January 2016. Quantity of macro/meso/microplastic objects in the upper 2cm of the sandy sediments of the wrack zone at 13 sampling sites all along the Russian coast is reported. Occurrence of paraffin and amber pieces at the same sites is pointed out. Special attention is paid to microplastics (range 0.5-5mm): its content ranges between 1.3 and 36.3 items per kg dry sediment. The prevailing found type is foamed plastic. No sound differences in contamination are discovered between beaches with high and low anthropogenic load. Mean level of contamination is of the same order of magnitude as has been reported by other authors for the Baltic Sea beaches.