Abundance and composition of solid waste materials on the western part of the Turkish Black Sea seabed

Abstract

Accumulation of marine litter is a worldwide growing problem of pollution in seas. Although it is recognized as one of the major pollution types for the Black Sea, very few studies can provide quantitative data and there are no data at all on solid wastes of the Black Sea seabed. This study was therefore aimed at investigating the abundance and composition of solid wastes in the southwestern Black Sea. Litter items were collected by trawling in October 2007, and in February and April 2008, at depths ranging from 25 m to 100 m. The solid waste concentration on the seabed showed a large variability (with zones ranging from 128–1320 items km^{– 2} and 8–217 kg km^-2). Marine litter concentrations were higher than in the Mediterranean Sea, consisting mainly of plastic materials. Most items were fragmented, which indicated that they had spent a long time at sea, and this made their identification difficult. Only 8 items had legible labels, 2 of them being Turkish and 6 foreign. This suggested that marine litter is a trans-boundary problem, not only in the oceans, but also for enclosed seas like the Black Sea. The situation needs to be monitored all over the basin using standardised methods in order to develop regionally valid and effective solutions.

Keywords:

• marine litter
• plastic
• debris

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Istanbul University Fisheries Faculty Research Vessel R/V YUNUS-S crew for their efforts, Turkish Marine Research Foundation (TUDAV) for the support to this study and Dr. Ayaka Amaha Öztürk for kindly reading an early version of the manuscript.