Cigarette butts on Baltic Sea beaches: Monitoring, pollution and mitigation measures

OSPAR, Rake and Flood accumulation zone methods were applied at 29 beaches of the German and Lithuanian Baltic Sea coast (2011-2018) to monitor cigarette butt pollution. Also, butt pollution prevention measure - ballot bin, was tested. The number of cigarette butts was significantly higher in Germany than in Lithuania, but the percent of butts from total litter items was similar. Rake method turned out to be suitable for cigarette butt assessment, while the OSPAR method underestimates the butt pollution. The visitor number on the beach had a significant effect on the cigarette butt number: in remote beaches, without visitors, usually, no butts were observed, while the highest number and the percent of butts were observed in beaches with the highest number of visitors. The ballot bin campaign may have increased the public awareness about pollution, but turned out to be inefficient in reducing it.