Abstract
Litter on beaches is one of the most difficult problems in coastal management and every year, much efforts and public money are invested to try to alleviate and solve the problem. Cigarette butts (CB) are among the most widespread abandoned personal items in the world. In Spain, they are found on all types of beaches, where they are discarded by beach users; however, rivers and streams can also deposit CB on shores. This paper analyses the abundance of CB on different beaches in Southern Spain in order to address and better understand this relevant environmental problem and propose sound solutions to decrease or eliminate their presence. The main factors favouring CB accumulation were identified, namely the seasonality and number of beach users, beach typology (remote, rural, village or urban sites), type of beach sediment and methods and frequency of cleaning operations. Mean and median CB abundance values per 100 m of beach length, calculated from all the data used in this study, were 159 and 68 items, respectively. The largest number of CB were observed at urban sites, followed by village, rural and remote beaches. Further, sand beaches registered higher values of CB than cobble or pebble beaches.
Highlights
Published: 27 January 2021Litter is typically observed on almost all beaches and oceans around the world since it is able to reach most isolated areas of the planet, such as deep environments [1], e.g., the Mariana Trench [2], or extremely remote sites such as Antarctica [3,4]
This paper examines cigarette butts (CB) items’ abundance counted in 188 beach litter assessments carried out by a research group belonging to the University of Cádiz (Spain)
A total of 29,919 cigarette butts was counted in 188 litter assessments (Table 1) that covered a total length of 18.8 km of coastline
Summary
Published: 27 January 2021Litter is typically observed on almost all beaches and oceans around the world since it is able to reach most isolated areas of the planet, such as deep environments [1], e.g., the Mariana Trench [2], or extremely remote sites such as Antarctica [3,4]. Cigarette butts (CB) constitute one of the most abundant items The presence of this type of personal waste has been very well documented in different beaches around the world [8,9,10,11,12,13], including Spain [14,15,16]. Their presence on the coast can be used as an indicator of beach management efficiency [17], environmental consciousness [18] and beach pollution linked to beachgoers [19]. Smoking is an activity that produces waste that comprises a large number of different materials: Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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