Marine Pollution Bulletin 47 (2003) 175–179

www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul

International survey on the distribution of stranded and buried

litter on beaches along the Sea of Japan
a,* b
Takashi Kusui , Michio Noda
a
College of Technology, Toyama Prefectural University, 5180 Kurokawa, Kosugi-machi, Imizu-Gun, Toyama 939-0398, Japan
b
Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center, Tower 111, 5-5 Ushijimashinmachi, Toyama 930-0856, Japan

Abstract

The distribution and abundance of marine litter on 26 beaches along the Sea of Japan were investigated from September to
November 2000. The mean concentration of stranded litter in Japan and Russia was 2144 and 1344 g/100 m2 , respectively. The mean
number of pieces of stranded litter in Japan and Russia was 341 and 20.7/100 m2 , respectively. The most abundant type of stranded
litter was plastic, which accounted for 40–80 % of the total items in terms of weight and number. The mean concentration of buried
litter in Japan and Russia was 9.03 and 2.70 g/m2 , respectively. The total weight ratio of buried litter to stranded litter in the samples
was 0.65, suggesting the significance of buried litter when evaluating the status of litter on beaches. Resin pellets were found on 12
Japanese beaches, but on none of the Russian beaches.
Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Beaches; Litter; Plastics; Pollution monitoring; The Sea of Japan

1. Introduction buried and are later exhumed on beaches, with finer

As well as being an aesthetic problem, marine litter
threatens marine wildlife through entanglement, ghost
fishing, and ingestion (Gregory, 1999). To clarify the
present dimensions of this problem and monitor rele-
vant trends, many monitoring programs, especially
beach surveys, have been undertaken throughout the
world (Frost and Cullen, 1997; Walker et al., 1997;
Whiting, 1998; Debrot et al., 1999). However, despite
the environmental pressure brought about by rapid ur-
banization and population growth along the coast of the
northwest Pacific region, there have been few reports on
marine litter in this region.
Plastic products typically make up the major category
in most litter surveys in terms of both weight and
number. They are susceptible to degradation and frag-
mentation under natural conditions, and both small
fragments of plastic and resin pellets have been reported
to injure the health of wildlife, such as marine birds and
fishes, through ingestion (Blight and Burger, 1997;
Gregory, 1999). These fragments of plastic often become
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +81-766-56-0396.
E-mail address: kusui@pu-toyama.ac.jp (T. Kusui).
0025-326X/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0025-326X(02)00478-2
fragments tending to remain in the sand for longer pe-
riods. However, most beach surveys have neglected the
litter buried in the sand because a suitable survey
method has been lacking, and these surveys might have
thus underestimated the amount of plastic litter on a
beach (Williams and Tudor, 2001). Ogi and Fukumoto
(2000) proposed a survey method for monitoring the
amounts of such buried litter.
Concern over marine litter led the government of
Toyama Prefecture in Japan and the Northwest Pacific
Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC) to
initiate an international survey of marine litter in 1996.
The twofold purpose of this survey has been to monitor
the distribution and abundance of marine litter in this
area as a basis for remedial action and to raise public
awareness of this issue through public involvement. The
unique characteristics of this international survey are as
follows: (1) a unified survey method has been employed
to ensure the compatibility of the results from each
beach; (2) the survey has been made at more than 20
beaches during the same period of the year with the help
of local governments and volunteers; and (3) the
amounts of litter buried in the sand have been measured
as well as the amounts of stranded litter on the beach to
take into consideration the characteristics of plastic
176 T. Kusui, M. Noda / Marine Pollution Bulletin 47 (2003) 175–179
litter. In this report, we discuss the survey results from
26 beaches along the Sea of Japan obtained from Sep-
tember to November 2000.
2. Methods
For the 2000 survey, 18 beaches in 13 prefectures in
Japan and 8 beaches in three municipalities in Russia
were chosen as sampling beaches (Fig. 1). The survey
was conducted from September 13 to November 3, 2000.
Two types of litter (stranded and buried) were mea-
sured. To evaluate the amount of stranded litter on the
beach quantitatively, 10-m by 10-m survey units (100
m2 ) were continuously set from the waterÕs edge to the
backshore zone of beaches. Usually two or three lines of
units were set parallel to the coastal line. A maximum of
10 units per beach were set depending on the geography
of the beaches. In each unit, the litter was collected
and sorted into categories (plastics, rubber, Styrofoam,
paper, cloth, glass/pottery, metals, other artificial items).
Litter items were also classified according to their use
and the country of origin if possible. Finally, they were
counted and weighed on site. For the buried litter, three
Fig. 1. Locations of sampling sites.
sampling points were selected outside of the survey units
for stranded litter. To collect the buried litter, the sand
of 8L, from a 40
40 cm space to a depth of 5 cm, was
raked by using a box-shaped stainless steel frame (after
removing any visible stranded litter on the sand) and put
into a bucket. The sand was mixed with seawater and
stirred, then the supernatant was filtered with a net (0.3-
mm mesh) to collect floating plastic particles. The plastic
particles were put into plastic bags and sent to Toyama
Prefectural University for sorting. Buried litter was also
identified, classified according to size (from less than
1
1 mm to over 10
10 mm), counted, and weighed
after drying (Ogi and Fukumoto, 2000).
The total survey area for stranded litter in Japan and
Russia was 8878 and 3369 m2 , respectively. For the
buried litter, 56 and 24 sampling points were selected in
Japan and Russia respectively.
3. Results
3.1. Stranded litter on Japanese beaches
A total of 213,290 g and 32,212 items of litter were
found in this survey of the Japanese beaches (Fig. 2). By
 T. Kusui, M. Noda / Marine Pollution Bulletin 47 (2003) 175–179
Fig. 2. Stranded litter on Japanese beaches.
weight, plastic items predominated (53.8%), followed by
other artificial items (21.3%), glass/pottery (10.1%), and
metals (4.9%). In terms of the number of items, plastics
were again the most common (72.9%), followed by
Styrofoam (19.3%), other artificial items (2.4%), and
glass/pottery (2.2%). Thus, plastics were the major
component of the litter both numerically and by weight.
The litter concentration by weight ranged from 144 to
7329 g/100 m2 , and the average was 2144 g/100 m2 . By
number of items, the average litter concentration was
341 items per 100 m2 . However, this concentration
ranged from 46 items per 100 m2 to 1272 items per 100
m2 ––differing by a factor of about 28––between the
sampling sites. The percentage of plastics at each Japa-
nese beach ranged from 21.0% to 79.5% by weight and
from 55.0% to 93.4% according to the number of items,
and plastics were predominant at all sites in Japan.
Among the plastic items (24,495 items), fragments
were the most abundant (9945 items). The second most
abundant items were resin pellets (4623 items), which
were found at 12 of the 18 Japanese beaches.
3.2. Comparison of stranded litter in Japan and Russia
On the eight Russian beaches, a total of 679 items
weighing 43,216 g were found. In contrast to the Japa-
nese beaches, other artificial items were the most
abundant by weight (37.7%), followed by plastics
(23.4%) and glass/pottery (18.7%). However, plastic
items were the most abundant (55.1%) numerically. The
average concentrations of stranded litter were 1344 g/
100 m2 and 21 items per 100 m2 , although up to 4694 g/
100 m2 of stranded debris was found at Muchke Bay.
Among the plastics, fragments were most abundant
(55.6%) numerically, but no resin pellets were found on
the Russian beaches.
177
The comparison of stranded litter on the Japanese
and Russian beaches (Fig. 3) showed that the average
concentration was 1.6 times and 16.8 times higher in
Japan, by weight and in number, respectively. The
composition of litter was similar in the two countries,
although the concentration of plastics was much higher
in Japan. Also, the numerical concentration of Styro-
foam, which is susceptible to fragmentation in the en-
vironment, was almost 50 times higher in Japan.
3.3. Buried litter
A total of 30,616 items were collected as buried litter
in this survey. Of the 11 categories, Styrofoam was the
predominant item and accounted for 87.1% of all items.
Plastic products/fragmented plastic products (10.6%)
and resin pellets (1.8%) were also important items, and
the other items accounted for less than 0.4% of the total
number. By weight, plastic products/fragmented plastic
products were by far the most abundant (73.2%), fol-
lowed by Styrofoam (14.7%), resin pellets (7.7%), and
sheet plastic (0.9%).
Fig. 4 shows the size distributions of the buried litter.
Of the 13 categories, Styrofoam, fragmented plastics
products, and resin pellets had notable patterns. The
items in the first two categories tended to be smaller
than the items in other categories and their peak dis-
tribution was around 2
2 mm to 3
3 mm. These
tendencies were due to the fragmentation caused by
weathering in the environment. The distribution of resin
pellets peaked at 4
4 mm, which is close to the size of
virgin plastic pellets.
The mean concentrations of buried litter at the Jap-
anese beaches (13.6 g/m2 and 2610 items per m2 )
were also higher than those at the Russian beaches (8.78
g/m2 , 31.3 items per m2 ). The large difference in the
178 T. Kusui, M. Noda / Marine Pollution Bulletin 47 (2003) 175–179

Fig. 3. Comparison of stranded litter on Japanese beaches and on Russian beaches.

fragments are washed away by waves and some become

buried in sand. For this reason, we expected to find
some quantitative relationship between the amounts of
stranded and buried litter. However, there seemed to be
no direct relationship between them in terms of weight
(Fig. 5).
The concentration ratio of buried to stranded litter by
weight ranged from 0 to 5.05 and the average was 0.65.
Of the 26 beaches surveyed, eight had a ratio of more
than 1.0 and six had a ratio of more than 0.1 and less
than 1.0. These finding show that at half of the beaches
almost the same order of litter existed in the sand as on

Fig. 4. Size distribution of buried litter. Vertical axis (x) represents

items with a diameter over ðx  1Þ mm and less than x mm.

number of items is mainly explained by the abundance

of Styrofoam in Japanese beaches (2204 items per m2 ).

3.4. Relationship between stranded and buried litter

Some stranded plastic litter is apparently fragmented Fig. 5. Relationship between stranded litter and buried litter at each
because of weathering or tidal movement. Some of the beach.
 T. Kusui, M. Noda / Marine Pollution Bulletin 47 (2003) 175–179
the sand. This suggests that the usual method of beach
surveys, which measures only the visible stranded litter
on a beach, leads to underestimation of the amount of
buried plastic and other items.
4. Discussion
The majority of items found on Japanese beaches were
plastics. These results are similar to those of other beach
surveys, except that the percentage of plastic litter by
weight was somewhat higher than in other surveys (Frost
and Cullen, 1997; Walker et al., 1997; Whiting, 1998;
Debrot et al., 1999). In this study, plastics accounted for
53.8% of the litter by weight and 72.9% in number. The
evident difference in the abundance of plastic litter
between Japan and Russia can be explained by the dif-
ferences regarding plastics consumption and local land-
based sources. However, direct comparisons with other
surveys are difficult because of differences in the litter
concentration units and classification categories.
Another important finding of this survey was that
there was no sign of pollution with resin pellets at the
Russian beaches. This is surprising because even remote
non-industrialized areas in the South Pacific have been
polluted with resin pellets at concentrations as high as
100/m to  100; 000/m (Gregory, 1999). In contrast to
the Russian beaches, resin pellets were found at two-
thirds of the Japanese beaches (12/18). Thus, resin pel-
lets may be a good indicator of increasing marine
pollution in this area, especially at the Russian beaches.
The physical–chemical fragmentation of plastic items
makes precise evaluation of plastic litter difficult even
though plastics are a persistent environmental pollutant.
The longer a plasticÕs retention time in the environment,
the smaller the plastic litter will become. That is why
smaller Styrofoam and fragmented products (around
2–3 mm in size) were predominant numerically in the
buried litter (Fig. 4). There have been a few reports
dealing with the size distribution of litter (Debrot et al.,
1999; Gregory, 1999), but this is the first report dealing
with the quantitative evaluation of small pieces of
plastic litter buried in the sand. Our results show that
the amount of buried litter is a significant consideration
when evaluating the amount of litter at a beach.
179
At present, there is little data showing whether the
amount of litter around the Sea of Japan is increasing or
decreasing. The results of this survey and our data from
1997 to 1999 surveys (data not shown) suggest that the
concentration of marine litter in this area is stable or
slightly decreasing. However, the rapid growth in pop-
ulation and urbanization without proper management
around this area will create environmental pressure on
the marine system. To ensure the effectiveness of source-
reduction strategies, such as proper waste management,
recycling of plastics, and penalties for illegal dumping, a
long-term monitoring program is needed as well as in-
ternational cooperation in this area. We hope that the
survey method we have described here will be useful for
this purpose.
Acknowledgements
We thank all the volunteers who helped collect and
sort the stranded litter and collected the buried litter. We
also thank Ms. Keiko Haji and Ms. Midori Mishima
who sorted the buried litter.
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