Marine litter monitoring: the case study of Paros island

Marine litter have been characterized as one of the main threats for societies, while among them, plastics have been found in various marine ecosystems. A monitoring project on marine litter, based on beach visual-surveys started in 2019, on Paros Island in the Aegean Sea, under the Clean Blue Paros initiative. Four main sandy beaches with different characteristics were primarily selected for seasonal sampling. Among the findings, Plastics were the most abundant litter category, covering 80.45% of the total items, followed by Food Waste and Textiles (7.3% and 5.2%, respectively). Among the beaches, only 3 items covered more than half of the total, namely cigarette butts and filters, ropes and small plastic bags. In a primary analysis, significant differences were found in the mean values of collected items between the two sampling years (2019 and 2020) in Martselo beach (p < 0.05, ANOVA test). In an effort to locally connect marine litter with their sources, a scoring matrix technique was applied for each beach, highlighting beach visitors as the primary input source, followed by fishing-related activities. On-going monitoring and additional awareness actions have been implemented to further support the overall effort of plastic pollution mitigation in the island.