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Presence of beach litter was assessed during spring and summer seasons 2018, at 56 sites along the coast of Alicante Province (SE Spain). Selected sites covered "remote" (9), "rural" (10) "village" (17) and "urban" (20) bathing areas. In an area of 201,700 m 2 , a total of 10,101 litter items (Avg: 0.062 items m -2 ) was counted in spring, and 20,857 (Avg: 0.116 items m -2 ) in summer. The most significant seasonal evolution was observed in the cigarette butt, group which increased from 4607 to 12843 units. Plastic represented the dominant material in both seasons (82.6 and 83.5% respectively). Litter items increased greatly during the summer season despite the increasing frequency of cleaning operations and were essentially related to beach users activities. Secondarily, beach litter was related to wastewater discharges and fishing activities. Beach litter management along investigated sites must be based on plans to reduce litter sources. For that, it is necessary to consider beach typology along with the seasonal influx of visitors to define the most appropriate management actions, not forgetting the implementation of environmental education, essential in schools and media.

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In the Antarctic Peninsula, most important activities are touristic visits, from the second half of the 20th Century, and scientific investigation linked to 75 research stations. Beach litter content/abundance was investigated at 17 beaches in Admiralty Bay (King George Island, Antarctica) and the type of plastic material was determined by Raman spectroscopy. An average value of 0.16 items m−1 was observed. Wood items consisted of processed wood fragments representing 47.27% of the total. Foam represented 21%, hard plastic pieces 9.68% (consisting of polyvinyl chloride or high density polyethylene), metal 3.37%, rubber fragments 2.81%, foamed plastic pieces 2.66% (composed by polystyrene), the rest of categories representing less than 2% of the total. Wood debris and metal are essentially remnant objects of ancient whaling activities and research expeditions, polyurethane and expanded polystyrene materials have different origins and hard plastic, rubber, paper/cardboard and paint fragments seem mostly linked to present research activities.