Initial Analysis of Plastic Debris Accumulation in the Estuary of Wonorejo River, Surabaya, Indonesia

¹ Department of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 UKM Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
² Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil, Environmental and Geo Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Kampus ITS Keputih, Sukolilo, Surabaya 60111, Indonesia
³ Study Program of Environmental Engineering, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universitas Airlangga, Kampus C UNAIR, Jalan Mulyorejo, Surabaya 60115, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: setyobudi.kurniawan@gmail.com

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the accumulation of plastic debris in the Wonorejo River Estuary, Surabaya, Indonesia. Visible plastic debris were collected from three (3) sampling points along the intertidal area of Wonorejo River Estuary. The correlation between sampling points (SPs) and the amount of the collected plastic debris (CPD) was analysed using one-way ANOVA. Result of one-way ANOVA showed that the sampling point was significantly affect the amount of the collected plastic debris (p<0.05). A further analysis using Tukey’s Significance Honest Test indicating a significantly higher CPD on SP2 compared to the SP1 and SP3 (p<0.05). The amount of CPD were 126.07±12.00 g dry weight/m² from SP1, 375.97±16.72 g dry weight/m² from SP2, and 291.13±36.28 g dry weight/m² from SP3. The highest percentage of collected debris item was plastic bags (up to 57.90%), followed by bottle caps (up to 16.65%). The most identified plastic types were Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) (up to 73.13%), followed by Polypropylene (PP) (up to 17.22%). Understanding the accumulation of plastic debris in estuary is a fundamental requirement to conduct an advance research related to the marine plastic pollution and to determine further actions to solve this problem.