A floating plastic monitoring program was conducted for two years on a weekly basis in Banderas Bay, Mexico. A total of 94 samples were collected from May 2016 to April 2018 in the southern part of the bay. Half (57%) of them contained plastic debris; 79% of it being <5 mm in length. Polypropylene and Polyethylene were the most abundant polymers, accounting for 45% and 43% of the plastic pieces (pp), respectively. The highest abundance of plastic pieces was found in July 2016, with a maximum of 0.3 pp/m3 found in one sample. The amount of floating plastics was significantly higher in the hurricane season compared to the dry season (p < 0.001). This suggests that rainfall may play a significant role in the offload of plastics from land-based sources into the bay.
Keywords: Marine debris; Mexico; Pacific Ocean; Plastics; Rainfall; Seasonality.
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