Adoption and diffusion of marine litter clean-up technologies across European seas: Legal, institutional and financial drivers and barriers

Public preferences for marine plastic litter management across Europe

“…Furthermore, our results suggest citizens prefer activities that target the entire EU, rather than their own country's seas and coasts. Plastic policies and cleanup efforts should therefore be designed on a regional level, which also can increase the effectiveness of management since marine litter is a transboundary problem that does not respect national borders ( Frantzi et al, 2021 ; Vince and Hardesty, 2017 ). The study identified untapped potential for funding more comprehensive marine litter management since respondents were willing to pay extra to support marine environmental health and reduce plastics in the marine environment.…”

“…Plastic pollution is omnipresent in the global marine environment ( Jambeck et al, 2015 ; Jeftic et al, 2009 ), and has been documented to negatively affect organisms, ecosystems, and human wellbeing ( Gregory, 2009 ; Rochman et al, 2013 ; Troost et al, 2018 ; Werner et al, 2016 ), highlighting the need for policy action ( GESAMP, 2015 ; UNEP, 2016 ). In the European Union (EU), the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) is the main legal instrument to protect the EU's marine environment ( Frantzi et al, 2021 ). Marine litter is one of the eleven qualitative descriptors listed in Annex I of the MSFD that the Directive targets to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES).…”

Temporal changes of plastic litter and associated encrusting biota: Evidence from Central Italy (Mediterranean Sea)

“…Consequently, in this manner more attention can be paid to periods of greater accumulation of beach litter and better target the management activities, including the cleanup actions. In this context citizen science events could be helpful initiatives to raise awareness of the extent of litter pollution and at the same time could help to maintain the beaches cleaned and minimise the impacts on biota (Arroyo Schnell et al, 2017;Reinold et al, 2020;Frantzi et al, 2021;Cau et al, 2022). In our case study, an initial citizen science event has been organized, where a great amount of beach litter has been removed, revealing the utility of this initiative, in addition to the fact that many citizens participated in these events following a citizen management approach.…”

Monitoring of seafloor litter on the Dutch continental shelf : International Bottom Trawl Survey 2022, Dutch Beam Trawl Survey 2021

“…Top-down EU policies (e.g. MSFD) are seen as the most influential pieces of legislation (Frantzi et al 2021). In addition, the MSFD requires to monitor the amount of litter in the marine environment and, where possible, monitor potential effects of the measures taken to reduce the amount of litter.…”