Consideration of missing plastics and proposal for installing automatic litter collectors in rivers

Abstract

Regarding marine plastics, the estimated value of about 150 million tons of plastics that are said to be accumulated and accumulated in the ocean by Jambeck et al. in 2015, is excessive. The estimate that most of the missing plastics are accumulated in the deep sea is also excessive. From my experience working on river surface cleaning, most of the missing plastics are not accumulated in the deep sea, but on the riverbed and coast. And it is the riverbed and coast that are the places where microplastics are generated. Here, they are constantly exposed to ultraviolet rays from the sun and are repeatedly wetted and dried by the tides and become microplastics. In other words, the riverbed and coast are where microplastics are born. The method of preventing their generation is to suppress the generation of disposable plastics, remove plastics accumulated on the beach and riverbed, and install automatic garbage collectors in each river to prevent plastics from flowing into the ocean through the river.