Contribution to the assessment of marine litter in the North Moroccan Atlantic

Waste pollution has become a concern around the world. Pollution that affects both the terrestrial and marine environments. Regardless of the nature, type and origin, accumulation and mismanagement of waste pose a danger to the environment and human health, in particular the marine system. In the face of this ever-increasing phenomenon of pollution, studies have been carried out to assess the quantity of waste in order to characterize condensation sites and sources of pollution.

we present the results of the analysis and monitoring of the state of marine litter pollution, concerning the identification of quantities, the nature and the spatial distribution of macro-waste collected at all the fishing stations swept along the North Moroccan Atlantic space between Tangier (36°N) and Sidi Ifni (29°N). The data were collected by a bottom trawling campaign aboard the research vessel "Al Amir Moulay Abdallah" carried out from 21 to 31 May 2022 covering different stratums of depths (from 28 to 140 m) and following a sampling network of 60 stations distributed randomly in the study area.

In all the stations swept by the trawl during the prospecting, the majority of the waste is distributed only at half of the stations which focus mainly on the axis between Mehdia and El Jadida. At the 33 other stations, which are the majority in the coastal axis between El Jadida and Sidi Ifni, no waste was recorded during navigation. During this prospection, a total of 13,5 Kg is collected, and all waste recovered is classified into 18 categories, the majority is represented by plastic items (81%) of the waste collected. Other items such as wood, iron, textiles and rubber were poorly identified. These wastes could be the source of different sources, but based on the waste categorization, the main source is related to fishing activities.