Arenas Blancas (El Hierro island), a new hotspot of plastic debris in the Canary Islands (Spain)

[EN] The present work has studied the incidence and type of micro (1-5 mm), meso (5-25 mm) and macroplastics (>25 mm) that have reached Arenas Blancas beach, located in the north coast of El Hierro island, in the Canary Islands (Spain), from October 2019 to May 2020 (13 sampling dates with 3 sampling points each). Taking into consideration the three studied plastic debris fractions (macro, meso and microplastics), a total of 9206 items were found, which had a total weight of 1169.7 g and a concentration of 891.3 ± 91.5 items/m2 (118.3 ± 17.8 g/m2 and 2.3 ± 0.4 g/L). Regarding their colour, most of them were transparent/white/clear, especially in the microplastic fraction in which they accounted for a 68% of the total. Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy of meso and microplastic fractions indicated that most of the particles were either polypropylene and polyethylene followed by polystyrene in a much lower amount. In general, the total amount of plastic debris that arrives to the beach by the persistent oceanic current pattern linked to the easternmost branch of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre is comparable to those of the most contaminated beaches of the Canary Islands archipelago, suggesting that a new hotspot of plastic debris arrival has been found.

Authors would like to thank Julio Herrero Segura (Dirección General de Lucha Contra el Cambio Climático y Medio Ambiente del Gobierno de Canarias), Carlos Samarín Bello (Dirección General de Lucha Contra el Cambio Climático y Medio Ambiente del Gobierno de Canarias), Diana Porto Lozano (Gestión y Planeamiento Territorial y Medioambiental, Gesplan, S.A.), Javier Pérez González (Gesplan, S.A.) y Vicente Benítez Cabrera (Dirección General de Lucha Contra el Cambio Climático y Medio Ambiente del Gobierno de Canarias) for the sampling facilities. J.G.S. would like to thank “Cabildo de Tenerife” for the Agustín de Betancourt contract at the Universidad de La Laguna. Authors acknowledge financial support of the Transnational Cooperation Program Azores-Madeira-Canary Islands for the “IMPLAMAC” project (reference number MAC2/1.1a/265) financed with FEDER funds. Authors would also like to thank the “General Support Research Services (SEGAI)” of the Universidad de La Laguna as well as May Gómez and Alicia Herrera from the EOMAR group at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Andrea Brito from the Universidad de La Laguna.

Peer reviewed