CARACTERIZAÇÃO DA POLUIÇÃO POR RESÍDUOS SÓLIDOS EM PRAIAS TURÍSTICAS DO RIO GRANDE DO NORTE

• Autor(a) principal: Lopes, Camila Cristina Cabral
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Trabalho de conclusão de curso
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRN
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/handle/123456789/37020
• topic: resíduos sólidos; lixo marinho; gestão costeira.

Despite decades of efforts to prevent and reduce marine litter in coastal environments, there is evidence that the problem is persistent and continues to grow. Urban beaches are often polluted by solid waste that causes a lot of damage. The present work aimed at evaluating the pollution by marine litter present in six beaches of the coast of Rio Grande do Norte (Touros, Jenipabu, Artists, Ponta Negra, Pirangi and Pipa), to identify the problems and to propose improvements. Sampling was conducted monthly from August 2016 to February 2017. All items larger than 3cm were quantified and classified according to their predominant composition (plastic, glass, metal, papel, wood and organic) and most probable source (beach user, domestic, mixed and fishing). In each beach two sample areas (A1: high user frequency; A2: low user frequency) with 200m extension by 5m wide, in the strandline were delimited. Within each sample area, a smaller area with 20m was determined to collect smaller items with a maximum of 3cm. A total of 14,661 items were identified on the six beaches during the sampling period. The beach of Ponta Negra was the most polluted with 25.2% of the total. Plastic items were the majority in all beaches, presenting the highest percentages in relation to the sum of all other items (paper, metal, glass, wood and organic). Among the plastics, the most frequent items were, pet bottle, straws, food bag and cellophane. As for residues up to 3cm, it was observed that Jenipabu, Artistas, Ponta Negra and Pipa were the beaches that presented the greatest amount. With regard to the most probable source, the contribution of the users was preponderant to all the evaluated beaches in relation to the other sources. Inadequate disposal of solid wastes, discharge of open effluents, lack of adequate infrastructure for solid waste collection and lack of environmental awareness of the population, were the most common problems to all beaches. Several measures have been proposed to reduce the problem.