Waste characterization in the urban canal network of Padova (Italy) to mitigate downstream marine plastic pollution

Concerns over plastic pollution in coastal wetlands, seas and oceans have risen ex-ponentially in recent years. The majority of waste found in the environment has a land-based origin and is transported toward coastal-marine ecosystems along rivers and canals. Accordingly, waste collection in watercourses flowing through urban ar-eas has a great potential to mitigate plastic pollution in local and coastal water bod-ies. In this paper, authors describe the results of three waste collection campaigns performed throughout 2021 (early summer, late summer and autumn) in three rep-resentative points of the canal network of the historical center of the city of Padova, Italy, where restoration of the urban stream ecosystems is currently ongoing. The collected waste was analyzed both in terms of size and material type. A total of 418 kg of waste was collected: the coarse fraction was prevalent (59% of the material intercepted by a 100 mm side mesh sieve), with plastic being the most widely represented waste category (47% by weight). The total amount of litter produced in one year from the canal network of the city of Padova was estimated, with those obtained from the canal banks found to be much higher than, or at least compara-ble to, those collected from the water, a finding which highlights the importance of planning waste collection together with riparian vegetation management to reduce plastic pollution. These findings provide a baseline for assessing the possibility of valorizing waste collected from the city waterways using processes other than land-filling and incineration.