DefinePK

Abstract

The increment of population growth and rapid economic development near the beaches area enhance the generation of marine debris annually thus has become an environmental concern. In BatuPahat, Johor, determination of marine debris compositions on the beach provide a preliminary caution on the level of contamination and also enable to identify the most abundant waste. For this study, a comparison between two beaches namely Sungai Lurus and MinyakBeku in BatuPahat district and located in the same coastline, were carried out. The composition, density and moisture content of the marine debris collected were determined The results demonstrated that plastic waste was the most abundant item at 80% of the total amount of debris and represents 54% by weight of marine debris composition in Sungai Lurus beach. Meanwhile, glass waste predominates at 60% with 39% by weight of marine debris composition at MinyakBeku beach. The moisture content of debris composition at MinyakBeku beach represents up to 12.61% compared to 8.68% at Sungai Lurus beach. High density of debris composition was obtained at MinyakBeku beach with 94.56kg/m3 followed by 66.15kg/m3at Sungai Lurus beach. As a conclusion, the economic activities and solid waste management along the beaches highly influence the amount of marine debris composition at Sungai Lurus and MinyakBeku beaches. Due to the number of marine debris that is still littered along the beaches has indicated that environmental concerns among Malaysian are still low.