Beach plastic monitoring method testing in Latvia

On August 20 and 21 “CLEAN Beach” project team – Latvian Institute of Aquatic Ecology, Finnish Environment Institute SYKE and TalTech – Tallinn University of Technology – visited Ventspils beach in Latvia. During the two days we continued assessment of beach microplastic pollution monitoring methods – we shared our experiences with different sample collection methods and tested them together in order to to effectively manage and incorporate them into beach monitoring routines.

On August 21 we were joined by Kristine Garklava, latvian TV anchor and public figure, who learned about the project and spread the word on how to use “Rosgis” platform to register plastic pollution. Involving an influencer helped us reach a wider audience and promote the use of “Rosgis” platform.

On the next day we were joined by stakeholders and demonstrated the methods for beach monitoring to them. After two days of active work we discussed the benefits and challenges for the different methods with the goal to identify the most easy to use method that would work well across the project partner countries and different beach settings. We will continue the analysis of the method test results and use the insights for developing the guidelines.