Pollution 

Waste Around the Coast

Participants reported a wide range of debris, with plastic materials appearing most consistently across the responses. The dominant categories were suspected microplastics or small plastic fragments and macroplastics, including bottles, plastic bags, containers, cigarette butts and food packaging.

Fishing-related debris, including nets, fishing lines, ropes and possible ghost gear, was also documented in multiple reports. Clothing and textile products appeared less frequently, alongside debris that participants could not identify.

Many observations contained more than one debris category, indicating that coastal waste was often encountered as a mixed assemblage rather than as a single material type. These combinations included plastic packaging, small plastic fragments, fishing materials and discarded textile products within the same observation.

Several participants also submitted free-text descriptions of glass fragments, pipes, seed shells, leaves, bread and vegetation.

Waste-disposal infrastructure was widely available across the monitored areas. Only six of the project’s 285 reports, or 2.1%, indicated that no waste bins were present, while the remaining observations generally reported access to one or more bins.