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Assessment of macro litter in Deli River Medan during pandemic COVID-19

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The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

Assessment of macro litter in Deli River Medan during

pandemic COVID-19

N H Hasibuan1,2*, R Salsabila1, Z Perdana1, H Khair1, A Husin1, I Suryati1, M

Nurfahasdi1 and S Patumona1
1
Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas
Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia.
2
Integrated Research Laboratory, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Sumatera Utara,
Indonesia.

Email: *novridahasibuan@usu.ac.id

Abstract. This study identifies and quantifies floating macro litter and macro plastic from Deli
River Medan during pandemic Covid-19. Macro litter transport consists of floating items at
surface, suspended in water column and transport over on riverbed. Litter was collected from 5
location along 11.6 km using static trawls with a height of 150 cm and width of 300 cm with a
square mesh size of 0.5 cm. Sampling was done in July, and during selection, 40 cm of net’s
height was constantly submerged for one hour. This study found that macro litter was 19.26
kg/h with 65.2% as anthropogenic waste, 34.3% as macro plastic, 0.3% as metal, and 0.15% as
medical waste. The composition of macro plastic has various variants, namely food containers,
plastic bags, food packaging, sanitary packaging, and mineral water packaging with
percentages of 10.21%, 67.89%, 8.35%, 4.36%, and 9.18%. The macro plastic abundance was
obtained at 2,476 x 10-4 kg/m3. This study showed a significant increase in plastic consumption
during the pandemic, especially plastic bags because it is dominated in all locations.

1. Introduction
The emergence of by the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) disease has changed all aspect of our life.
Pandemic Covid-19 forced us to postpone anthropogenic activity in public area and most of us should
be working from the home. Pandemic Covid-19 started as health crisis and currently, it promptly
evolved into economic, social and environmental threats [1]. Some studies report that domestic solid
residues increase during the pandemic, reducing recycling and more of synthetic plastic used as
personal protection equipment [2]. Besides that, all of us recommended wearing masks when going
out in public area, mainly indoor areas. This situation contributed to increasing face mask waste as
medical waste. Jakarta produces 12,470 tons of medical waste 60 days after the first people infected
by coronavirus in the area [3].
Deli River Medan City is a primary drainage network along 70 km with a watershed area of
47,748.01 Ha, which 36.6% used as residential area [4]. The existing condition of Deli River shows
anthropogenic waste found in all locations, especially macro plastic waste. Macroplastic is plastic with
a size more than 0.5 cm and it’s a polluted in river system because it harms aquatic ecosystems and
human [5]. Most of macroplastic input to terrestrial area occur via littering. Littering is illegal disposal

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution
of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd 1
The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

of waste to environmental such as land, river, lake etc. Litter can come from unintentional disposal
and illegal dumping [6].
This study will be identified and quantify macro litter and macro plastic from Deli River during
pandemic Covid-19. The result of this study can be information to stakeholder to manage our waste.

2. Materials and methods

Determination of the sampling location is based on the water velocity and the easiness of access so
that the distance per segment is selected from 2.1 to 2.5 km. The coordinates are as follows, point S0
as the control point, which is the starting point of the Deli River in Medan City, 3°32'18.46” N and
98°41'0.00” E (Location S0), 3°33 '24.00” N and 98°41'0.00” E (Location S1), 3°34'23.00” N and
98°40'57.00” E (Location S2), 3°35'3.95” N and 98°40'37.85” E (Location S3), °35'48.00” N and
98°40'22.00” E (Location S4). The location focuses on residential areas. The float method based on
Indonesia standard with SNI 8066:2015 is used for measuring the instantaneous discharge.
Litter was collected using a net with a length of 150 cm and a width of 300 cm with mesh size of
0.5 cm. Sampling was done in July and during sampling, 40 cm of net’s height was constantly
submerged for one hour after considering the distance and the flow velocity of Deli River.

Figure 1. Sampling illustration.

Macro litter was dried in the sun for 24 hours or (until dry). The macrolitter was weighed and
visually sorted. The item were weight according to their category: macroplastic, metal, medical waste,
and antropogenic waste [7]. The dried macroplastics ware weighed by digital scale. Macroplastic
abundance (Cp) is also calculated using the discharge (Q), where macroplastic transport (Mp) on the
water in kg/s compared with the Deli River discharge in m3/s so the unit is kg/m3 [8]. Macroplastic
sorted and weighted by the category. The categories are food container, plastic bag, food food
packaging, sanitary packaging and mineral water packaging. The dominant of macrolastic found in the
location will be tested to identify the type with FTIR and the structure by SEM.

3. Results and discussion

The average of instantaneous discharge in Deli River was 7.42 m3/s, with the maximum discharge in
location 4 being 9.26 m3/s and the minimum release in location 3 being 5.03 m3/s. The average
reliability discharge for Deli River is 26.1 m3/s and the minimum is 6.18 m3/s [9].
In total, 19.25 kg of macro litter collected for one hour, of which 6.61 kg h-1 was identified as
macroplastic, 0.06 kg h-1 as metal waste, 0.03 kg h-1 as medical waste and 12.5 kg h-1 as anthropogenic
waste. Total of litter per location can be seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2 illustrates that the average of anthropogenic waste in all locations was 65% of total litter.
Macro plastic was 34.3%, metal was 0.3% and medical waste was 0.15%. The dominated of
anthropogenic waste because 36.6% of Deli River Basin is residential area [4].

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The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

Litter (kg/h)
% Composition

Figure 2. Total of litter per location.

The percentage of macroplastic found was 34% and it’s slightly different from the rate of plastic
waste produced by residential in Medan City in the period before COVID-19 [10]. The total of
macroplastic found in Deli River indicated that some plastic from residential and non-residential runs
to rivers body. In additional, plastic consumption, especially single-use plastic has increased
significantly during pandemic COVID-19 because it’s one of the efforts to protect viruses especially
for food products. Several restaurants used double plastic as a safety concern during the Covid-19
pandemic. The demand for plastic for packaging is estimated to increase by 40% and for other
applications including medical, increase by 17% during covid-19 [1].
Medical waste, especially medical masks, was found in the Deli River, with an average of 0.15% of
the total waste. Medical masks are hazardous waste that must be explicitly handled. The population in
Indonesia is estimated to produce 159,214,791 medical mask waste, this number occupies the 3rd rank
of 9 Asian countries studied [3]. The existence of medical masks in water bodies needs to be a serious
concern, because the management of masks as hazardous waste is still not optimal during this
pandemic. A structured effort is required from the Medan city government regarding the handling of
hazardous waste during the pandemic, especially medical masks. These medical masks are feared as
one of the transmission routes for Covid-19 because most of the people who live on the banks of the
river still use river water for their daily needs. Some study found limited evidence that various corona
viruses in river, lake, and reservoir water although low detection rates [2].
Total macroplastic from all locations was 6.61 kg/hours, with an average macroplastic per location
was 1.322 kg/hours. The abundance of macroplastic at each location using instantaneous dischange,
average and minimum discharge can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3 illustrates that the abundance of macroplastic on water body of Deli River in Medan City
has not a constant value. The higher macroplastic on location 2 which is 1.157 x 10-4 kg/ m3 and the
lowest at location 0 was 1.153 x 10-5 kg/ m3. Macroplastic on water has movement or plastic transport,
macroplastic can move horizontally, influenced by turbulence, flow speed, wind speed, and navigation
[11][6]. Macroplastics will flow following and carried away by the direction of the river water flow.
This occurs between location 0 and location 1 (segment 1) and location 1 and location 2 (segment 2),
where in segment one increases macroplastic abundance by 235.29%, and segment two increases by
199.41%.
However, the abundance of macroplastics decreased between location 2 and location 3 (segment 3)
and location 3 and location 4 (segment 4). In contrast, wherein in segment 3, the macroplastics
decreased by 30.44%, and segment four decreased by 71.31 %. In addition to horizontal transport,
macroplastics can move with vertical transport. Vertical transport is affected by the mass and density
of macroplastics and the hydraulic structure or resistance of the river itself [12].

3
The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

0.00016
Abundance of Macroplastic (kg/m3)

0.00014

0.00012

0.0001

0.00008

0.00006

0.00004

0.00002

0
0 1 2 3 4
Location
abundance with instantaneous discharge (kg/m3) abundance with average dischange (kg/m3) abundance with minimum discharge (kg/m3)

Figure 3. Abundance of macroplastic (kg/m3).

The decrease in macroplastics abundance can be caused by fragmentation by macroplastics broken

into smaller pieces. During transportation, plastic interacts mechanically with water and river
sediments, causing the particles to become mechanically fragmented [13]. When macroplastics are
deposited for a long time, macroplastics will undergo biochemical degradation [14]. Any physical or
chemical change in the polymer is caused by environmental factors, such as light, heat, humidity,
chemical conditions or biological activity [15].
This is supported by an analysis conducted to macroplastics that found in the Deli River. FTIR
results showed that macroplastics contain bonds from polyethylene polymers with wavelengths of
2939.52 cm-1, 2870.08 cm-1, 2642.48 cm-1, 2515.18 cm-1, 2414.88 cm-1, 1473.62 cm-1, 1172.72 cm-1,
1111 cm-1, 1080.14 cm-1, 1037.7 cm-1, 875.68 cm-1, and 721.38 cm-1. This Polyethylene was analysed
for its surface shape with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), the results of the analysis showed
that there were differences in the surface structure between the plastic bags found in the river and the
new ones. The results show that on the new macroplastic, the surface looks smooth, flat, and there are
no cracks, while the macroplastic that has been in the river for a long time has cracks, an uneven
surface, spots and tears. This image below showed SEM result of macroplastic on river with various
magnification.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 4. (a) Magnification 250x, (b) magnification 500x, (c) magnification 1000x.

The following are the SEM result of new macroplastic with polyethylene polymers.

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The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

(a) (b)

(a) (b)

Figure 5. (a) magnification 250x, (b) magnification 1000x.

The composition of macroplastic found in the Deli River Medan was plastic bag with a percentage
of 68%, and followed food containers, food packaging, sanitary packaging, and mineral water
packaging, namely 10.21%, 67.89%, 8.35%, 4.36% and 9.18%.

(a)

Figure 6. Macroplastic composition.

Figure 6 illustrates that the composition of macroplastic has different at each point of sampling
location. But overall, the highest macroplastic composition was plastic bags at 68%. Single-use plastic
bags are considered accessible, more practical, and cheaper. This is supported by data from the
Ministry of Environment and Forestry in 2016 that Indonesia produces 9.85 billion pieces of plastic
bag waste every year [16]. Plastic bags are dominated by polyethylene and are the most common
found in the environment, Polyethylene has a density of 0.89-0.98 g/cm3 [17] and it causes
polyethylene easy to found on the surface of the water and easy to move vertically.
In addition, there are 10.21% food containers in the form of Styrofoam and lunch box, 8.35% food
packaging which is snack packaging such as instant noodles, soy sauce in the form of sachets, 4.36%
sanitary packaging which comes from detergent packaging, soap, softener in sachet packaging, and
9.18% mineral water packaging in the form of disposable cup mineral water.

4. Conclusions
Macro litter was found 19.25 kg/hours on Deli River. Macro litter is dominated by anthropogenic
waste, macroplastic, metal and medical waste. Percentages of anthropogenic waste were 65% from
total litter, and 34% was macroplastic. Macroplastic was increased during pandemic covid-19

(a) (c)
5
The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

especially plastic bag and plastic packaging. The composition of macroplastic namely food containers,
plastic bags, food packaging, sanitation packaging and mineral water packaging with percentages of
10.21%, 67.89%, 8.35%, 4.36% and 9.18%. Macroplastic abundance increased and decreased, where
it was caused by horizontal and vertical plastic transport. Changes in the surface structure of macro
plastics, especially polyethylene due to horizontal and vertical transportation of plastics, are visible
when compared to new plastics. This shows that macroplastics can be degraded and become
microplastics or nano plastics.

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 The 5th International Conference on Agriculture, Environment, and Food Security IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science 977 (2022) 012106 doi:10.1088/1755-1315/977/1/012106

review TrAC - Trends Anal. Chem. 113 pp 84–92

Acknowledgment
This research was held by funding support from Research Institution at University of Sumatera Utara
by Research Implementation Contract TALENTA USU 2021 with Number 6789/UN5.1.R/PPM/2021
Date 16 Juni 2021.

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