Fragmented marine plastics as the prevalent litter type on a small island beach in the Adriatic.

The issue of plastic pollution has dramatically intensified in the recent years. Our study investigates extensive plastic contamination of a sandy beach on a small Adriatic island. The beach was sampled on three occasions, in 2013, 2020 and 2022, using 1 m ² quadrats placed along the lower and upper strandlines, resulting in average litter concentrations of 385 ± 106, 1095 ± 522 and 129 ± 37 item m ^-2 , respectively. The lower size limit of collected litter was 1 mm, thus including large microplastics. Plastic fragments (49-74 %) and plastic pellets (15 %-37 %) were predominant litter categories. The proportion of fragments is significantly higher during the tourist season with a more intensive cleaning regime (April-October), as opposed to the off-season (November-March). Fisheries and aquaculture litter was identified as a relevant source of pollution. More research is needed in the future into the microplastics smaller than 1 mm.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Pero Tutman reports financial support was provided by Croatian Ministry of Science and Education. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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