Tourism and public littering are the main contributors to beach litter, says a pan-Indian litter density study of beaches in the country, including Kerala done in 2019 and 2021 by the National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR).
A total of 33 beaches in 2019 and 30 beaches in 2021 were studied. Based on density, the national beach litter Average was 0.475 items per square metre in 2019 and 0.3 items in 2021. Plastic was the dominant litter type (65% in 2019; 74 % in 2021) and single-use plastics (SUPs) were predominant. Based on the clean-coast index, six beaches in 2019 and three beaches in 2021 are classified as extremely dirty.
Among the studied 33 beaches in 2019, data on litter density (number of litter items per square meter of area) from 22 beaches and data on litter weight from 33 beaches were deemed suitable for inclusion in the final analysis. A total of 3,26,424 litter items from 22 beaches and 36,519kg of litter from 33 beaches were collected during the 2019 international coastal cleanup (ICC) day. Whereas, in the 2021 ICC-day event, a total of 1,97,309 items and 11,809kg of litter from 30 beaches were collected.