Central American beaches the most polluted in the Pacific by plastics

Central American Beaches Are Being Overrun With Local and Foreign Plastic

A study of plastic bottles washed up on the Pacific coast of Latin America has identified a double problem—a mass of local waste combined with long-traveling bottles from Asia.

Central American beaches the most polluted in the Pacific by plastics

Coastal communities and beaches in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama had the highest levels of contamination from plastics in the ocean.

Central American Seashores Are Being Overrun With Native and Overseas Plastic

A picture from the examine illustrating how plastic bottles attain Latin American Pacific coasts. Illustration: Garcés-Ordóñez et al. (2025) (CC BY 4.0) The scientists discovered that, like different marine particles, the bottles and caps they retrieved have been typically colonized by motionless organisms known as epibionts, which stay on the floor of different organisms or supplies. The workforce discovered gadgets with bryozoans, barnacles, a…