A seasonal comparison of litter impacts along the Viña del Mar - Concón coastal strip, Valparaiso region of Chile

Highlights: • Litter average was 0.21 items/m² while during fall and winter were 0.25 items/m² and 0.17 items/m^2. • Plastics, cigarette butts and paper-cardboard dominated the litter collected with an average of 88.3%. • The 14 sectors surveyed were classified using four different environmental indexes. • The study area can be divided into two specific groups. • Litter composition suggests a combination of six sources that mainly include direct activities over the beach environment. The Vina del Mar - Concón Coastal strip is well known for its urban beaches, which play an essential role in the national economy. With extreme urban development, these beaches have become more polluted by litter. This paper evaluates the abundance, spatio-temporal distribution, typology, and sources of beach litter in 14 sectors located inside this coastal strip. A total of 19,886 litter items were collected and grouped into 50 different categories (11 litter typologies). Overall average litter abundance was 0.21 items/m² while during the fall and winter averages were 0.25 items/m² and 0.17 items/m². Values changed along the area and between seasons. Plastics, cigarette butts and paper-cardboard typologies dominated the samples with 42% (0.088 items/m²), 25.4% (0.053 items/m²) and 20.8% (0.043 items/m²).