Data of Littering in population centers along the Latin American Pacific coast

The data include variables on the abundance, types, and fill levels of solid waste receptacles; the abundance and types of macrolitter; and littering behavior in public spaces across 20 cities in seven countries of the Latin American Pacific region, including México, Costa Rica, Panamá, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú, and Chile. These data were collected between July and December 2024 as part of the project “Training teachers and schoolchildren in research on downstream impacts and shutting down upstream sources of marine litter.” from the citizen science program Científicos de la Basura, which was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Católica del Norte, Coquimbo campus, Chile (Resolution No. 15, July 24, 2023). The data were used in the short communication “Littering in population centers along the Latin American Pacific coast,” published in the Journal of Environmental Management (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2026.130258).