Plastics in the oceans: an analysis via the Bootstrap method

Abstract

Plastics have been an important contaminant of the oceans. As a result, several countries have been developing public environmental policies to mitigate the presence of this contaminant in the food chain. Statistical planning must be present in environmental decision-making, being capable of providing robust answers through the analysis of the data obtained. Therefore, choosing an appropriate statistical method contributes significantly to obtaining reliable results. The Bootstrap Method (BM) has been widely used in several environmental studies, constituting an excellent statistical tool for analyzing data with anomalous values. This is very important because, when collecting data from the natural environment, values vary from background to extremely high values. Therefore, and within this context, the objective of the present work was to use the MB in the statistical analysis of data on the global per capita quantity of plastics emitted into the oceans. The data was collected from the free Our World in Data Platform. The results obtained showed that the MB is a very efficient statistical tool in environmental planning, when there is a need to analyze data sets with discrepant values originating from the natural environment.