Is conscientious beachcombing the key to 'unlock' marine plastic pollution trends through citizen science? A case study from Cockburn Sound, Western Australia

Interventions of citizen science for mitigation and management of plastic pollution: Understanding sustainable development goals, policies, and regulations

Plastic pollution in the natural environment has been overlooked, which leads to potential risks to human health and wildlife. This paper provides an overview on citizen science approach to mitigate and manage plastic pollution in natural environments. Also, this paper highlights the importance of citizen science in raising public awareness of environmental issues and promoting sustainable practices. Case studies and different projects, such as "Plastic Pirates", "Litterati", "Trash Hunter", "International Pellat Watch", and many more projects on the role of citizen scientists are summarized, which aims to monitor and collect plastic resin pellets from different ecosystems, for example, beaches, seas, and rivers and also engage various stakeholders, for example, citizen scientists, students, academic and research organizations, non-profits, government agencies, industry, and local communities. Additionally, this paper discusses different methodologies, such as surveys and sampling approaches, using mobile apps, instruments and kits to collect information on plastic pollution. Importantly, it discusses the need for global partnerships and policies to address plastic waste management and prevent conflict. Likewise, this review emphasizes the citizen sciences and impacts of plastics on both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to conserve, preserve, and monitor biodiversity through citizen participation. This study also highlights the significance of community involvement, such as local, coastal, marginalized, or vulnerable communities, in environmental research and the potential benefits of citizen science programs. Overall, this paper concludes with insights into citizen science as a valuable resource tool for researchers, policymakers, and the public interested in understanding and addressing the problem of plastic pollution.

Anthropogenic and environmental factors partly co-determine the level, composition and temporal variation of beach debris

The accumulation of human-derived waste on our coasts is an escalating phenomenon, yet the relative importance and potential interactions among its main drivers are not fully understood. We used citizen-science standardized collections to investigate how anthropogenic and environmental factors influence the level, composition, and temporal variation of beach debris. An average of 58 kg and 803 items/100 m, dominated by single-use items of land (rather than sea) origin, were collected in the 881 beaches sampled. Interactions between anthropogenic and environmental factors (e.g., human use × beach substrate) were the strongest predictors of beach debris, accounting for 34% of the variance explained in its amount and composition. Beach debris showed a highly stochastic temporal variation (adjusted R2 = 0.05), partly determined by interactions between different local and landscape anthropogenic pressures. Our results show that both environmental and anthropogenic factors (at the local and landscape scale) co-determine the level and composition of beach debris. We emphasize the potential of citizen-science to inform environmental policy, showing that land-originated single-use items dominate beach debris, and the importance of considering their multiple anthropogenic and environmental drivers to improve our low predictive power regarding their spatio-temporal distribution.

Assessing human and physical drivers of macro-plastic debris spatially across Queensland, Australia

Plastic pollution poses environmental and socio-economic risks, requiring policy and management interventions. The evidence-base for informing management and evaluation of their effectiveness is limited. Partnerships with citizen scientists provide opportunities to increase the spatio-temporal scale of monitoring programs, where training and standardised protocols provides opportunities for the use of data in addressing multiple hypotheses. Here, we provide a baseline of debris trends and infer debris drivers of abundance across 18° of latitude, using 168 surveys from 17 beaches across Queensland, Australia through the ReefClean project. Plastics were the dominant material (87% of total debris, with hard, soft and foam plastics aggregated), although linking recovered debris to sources was limited, as 67% of items were fragmented. We tested potential drivers of specific debris types (i.e., plastics, commercial fishing items, items dumped at-sea, and single-use items) and identified significant relationships between debris accumulation with distance from the nearest population centre and site characteristics (modal beach state, beach orientation and across-beach section). Management efforts should consider beach type and orientation within site selection, as an opportunity to maximise the amount recovered, alongside other criteria such as the risks posed by debris on environmental, economic, and social values. This study demonstrates the utility of citizen science to provide baselines and infer drivers of debris, through data gathered at scales that are infeasible to most formal monitoring programs. The identified drivers of debris may also differ from regional and global studies, where monitoring at relevant scales is needed for effective management.