Citizen scientists study beach litter along 12,000 km of the East Pacific coast: A baseline for the International Plastic Treaty.

Anthropogenic Marine Litter (AML) accumulating on beaches causes damage to coastal ecosystems and high costs to local communities. Volunteers sampled AML on 130 beaches along the central and southern East Pacific coasts, with AML densities ranging from 0.46 to 2.

Bottle with a message: The role of story writing as an engagement tool to explore children's perceptions of marine plastic litter.

As human behaviors play a crucial role in addressing the global threat of plastic pollution, it is vital to understand perceptions about marine plastic litter (MPL) and to develop interventions encouraging pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). This study evaluates story writing as a window to explore perceptions and as an engagement activity to boost PEBs. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, schoolchildren from the East Pacific coast participated in this activity, each creating a story and answering a pre-post survey.