TY - CHAP U1 - Teil eines Buches A1 - Bornstein, Daniela A1 - Steinhaus, Johannes T1 - The Côte d'Argent, France: Quantification of Plastic Pollution in Beach Sediments T2 - Liu (Ed.): Prime Archives in Sustainability, 4th Edition 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 U6 - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:1044-opus-87518 UN - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:1044-opus-87518 UR - https://videleaf.com/the-cote-dargent-france-quantification-of-plastic-pollution-in-beach-sediments/ SN - 978-93-92117-80-0 SB - 978-93-92117-80-0 N1 - This Book Chapter is a republication of an article published by Daniela Bornstein, Johannes Steinhaus at Sustainability in April 2024. (Bornstein, D.; Steinhaus, J. The Côte d’Argent, France: Quantification of Plastic Pollution in Beach Sediments.) SP - 1 EP - 36 PB - Vide Leaf ER -