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An inshore–offshore sorting system revealed from global classification of ocean litter

Nature Sustainability volume 4, pages 484–493 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The surge of research on marine litter is generating important information on its inputs, distribution and impacts, but data on the nature and origin of the litter remain scattered. Here, we harmonize worldwide litter-type inventories across seven major aquatic environments and find that a set of plastic items from take-out food and beverages largely dominates global litter, followed by those resulting from fishing activities. Compositional differences between environments point to a trend for litter to be trapped in nearshore areas so that land-sourced plastic is released to the open ocean, predominantly as small plastic fragments. The world differences in the composition of the nearshore litter sink reflected socioeconomic drivers, with a reduced relative weight of single-use items in high-income countries. Overall, this study helps inform urgently needed actions to manage the production, use and fate of the most polluting human-made items on our planet, but the challenge remains substantial.

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Fig. 1: Material, plastic type and probable origin of the litter found in the seven major aquatic environments at a global scale.
Fig. 2: Top ten litter items in aquatic environments.
Fig. 3: Samples collected with surface-trawling macro-nets from offshore and nearshore surface waters.
Fig. 4: Conceptual model of the most likely predominant flows of the top litter items in the ocean.
Fig. 5: Macro-litter densities (items m−2) in ocean surface waters, shorelines, shallow (<50 m depth) and deep (>50 m depth) nearshore seafloor, and deep seafloor (>100 m depth).
Fig. 6: Top ten litter items in the nearshore seafloor of the seven large world socioeconomic regions.

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Data availability

Supplementary text and additional figures and tables can be found in the supplementary material. The data that support the findings of this study, as well as a tool (Excel macro) to automatically convert any litter category list into the joint master list (JML) used here, are available at https://marinelitterlab.eu/ and from the corresponding authors upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, CTM2016-77106-R, AEI/FEDER/UE through the MIDaS project. The 2014-2020 ERDF Operational Programme and the Regional Government of Andalusia (ref. FEDER-UCA18-107828, PLAn project) supported C.M.-C., and the BBVA Foundation (PLASTREND project) supported D.G.-F.. The European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no_715386) supported E.v.S. This study is the outcome of the huge labour of many dedicated volunteers and researchers who have cleaned and recorded litter all around the world together with ECOPUERTOS, Marine Litter Watch, Ocean Conservancy, Project Aware, The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup, The Ocean Cleanup and RIMMEL. The icons displayed in the figures were originally provided by Surfrider Foundation Europe. Thanks to A. L. Fanning for valuable comments on the document.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología, University of Cadiz and European University of the Seas (SEA-EU), Instituto Universitario de Investigación Marina (INMAR), Puerto Real, Spain

    Carmen Morales-Caselles, Josué Viejo, Elisa Martí, Daniel González-Fernández, J. Ignacio González-Gordillo, Gonzalo M. Arroyo, Fidel Echevarría, José A. Gálvez, Carlos M. García, Ana Bartual, Gorka Markalain & Andrés Cózar

  2. Project Aware, Dive Against Debris, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Hannah Pragnell-Raasch

  3. Asociación Proyecto Ecopuertos, Cádiz, Spain

    Enrique Montero

  4. European Commission Joint Research Centre, Directorate D – Sustainable Resources, European Commission, Ispra, Italy

    Georg Hanke

  5. Posidonia Green Project, Barcelona, Spain

    Vanessa S. Salvo

  6. AZTI Marine Research, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Pasaia, Spain

    Oihane C. Basurko

  7. Ocean Conservancy, Portland, OR, USA

    Nicholas Mallos

  8. The Ocean Cleanup, Rotterdam, Netherlands

    Laurent Lebreton

  9. Hydrology and Quantitative Water Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, Netherlands

    Tim van Emmerik

  10. Red Sea Research Centre (RSRC) and Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Carlos M. Duarte

  11. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Erik van Sebille

  12. IFREMER (French Institute for Research and Exploitation of the Sea), Immeuble Agostini, Z.I. Furiani, Bastia, France

    François Galgani

  13. Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Peter S. Ross

  14. UNEP/ Mediterranean Action Plan, Barcelona Convention Secretariat, Athens, Greece

    Christos Ioakeimidis

  15. Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, Kasuga, Japan

    Atsuhiko Isobe

Authors
  1. Carmen Morales-Caselles
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  26. Andrés Cózar
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Contributions

C.M.-C. and A.C. conceived and drafted the present study; they contributed equally to the work. A.C., D.G.-F., H.P.-R., J.I.G.-G., E. Montero, G.M.A., G.H., O.C.B., N.M., L.L., T.v.E. and C.I. participated in the design and coordination of the field surveys. C.M.-C., J.V., A.C., E. Martí and D.G.-F. analysed the data. All authors read and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Carmen Morales-Caselles or Andrés Cózar.

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Peer review information Nature Sustainability thanks Lauren Roman and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Morales-Caselles, C., Viejo, J., Martí, E. et al. An inshore–offshore sorting system revealed from global classification of ocean litter. Nat Sustain 4, 484–493 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00720-8

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