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Beach litter in three South American countries: A baseline for restarting monitoring and cleaning after COVID-19 closure

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 201...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Botero, C.M., Palacios, M.A., Souza Filho, J.R., Milanes, C.B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10099211/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37084613
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2023.114915
Descripción
Sumario: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.