TY  - JOUR
U1  - Wissenschaftlicher Artikel
A1  - Bornstein, Daniela
A1  - Steinhaus, Johannes
T1  - The Côte d’Argent, France: Quantification of Plastic Pollution in Beach Sediments
JF  - Sustainability
N2  - Pollution with anthropogenic waste, particularly persistent plastic, has now reached every remote corner of the world. The French Atlantic coast, given its extensive coastline, is particularly affected. To gain an overview of current plastic pollution, this study examined a stretch of 250 km along the Silver Coast of France. Sampling was conducted at a total of 14 beach sections, each with five sampling sites in a transect. At each collection site, a square of 0.25 m2 was marked. The top 5 cm of beach sediment was collected and sieved on-site using an analysis sieve (mesh size 1 mm), resulting in a total of approximately 0.8 m3 of sediment, corresponding to a total weight of 1300 kg of examined beach sediment. A total of 1972 plastic particles were extracted and analysed using infrared spectroscopy, corresponding to 1.5 particles kg−1 of beach sediment. Pellets (885 particles), polyethylene as the polymer type (1349 particles), and particles in the size range of microplastics (943 particles) were most frequently found. The significant pollution by pellets suggests that the spread of plastic waste is not primarily attributable to tourism (in February/March 2023). The substantial accumulation of meso- and macro-waste (with 863 and 166 particles) also indicates that research focusing on microplastics should be expanded to include these size categories, as microplastics can develop from them over time.
KW  - Atlantic coast
KW  - microplastic
KW  - plastic pollution
KW  - beaching
KW  - infrared spectroscopy
Y1  - 2024
UN  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:1044-opus-82636
SN  - 2071-1050
SS  - 2071-1050
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072992
DO  - https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072992
VL  - 16
IS  - 7
SP  - 19
S1  - 19
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  -