Hazardous materials of marine debris, and their pollution indices in the beaches of Kanyakumari, the Southern coast of India

Marine debris and marine plastic debris pollution have become an emerging threat to the Indian coast. The main purpose of this study is to assess the marine debris and associated pollution indices of Hazardous Anthropogenic Litter Index (HALI), Clean-Coast Index (CCI), and Plastic abundance Index (PAI) along the beaches of Kanyakumari, the Southern coast of India. A total of 11439 marine debris (the average density of 6.71 items/m2) were collected and classified into 33 groups (9 marine debris types) along the seven beaches of the Kanyakumari. From the results, plastics (65.08%) were the most abundant items followed by foam (21.93%), cloths (4.59%), rubber (3.09%), papers (2.26%), glass (2.16%), metal (0.38%), wood (0.26%), and others (0.26%). From the result, the average value (27.24) of CCI indicates that all beaches are “Extremely dirty”, however, PAI average value (4.37) indicates “High abundance”, and HALI allows categorization of the study area as “II”. The types of plastics relating to the study area refer to a combination of sources, the most common of which are dumping and direct beach activity. These findings could facilitate better management strategies to combat marine debris pollution in this region.

Keywords: Marine debris; CCI; PAI; HALI; Plastics; Kanyakumari beach