Table 1.

Comparison of survey protocols for monitoring the accumulation of beached litter in the USA (US Marine Debris Monitoring Program (USMDMP), Sheavly 2007) and Europe (Beach Litter Monitoring Programme, OSPAR Commission 2007a).

	USMDMP	OSPAR
type of beach	sand/gravel	sand/gravel
beach slope	15–45° (not steep)	—
beach length (m)	>500	>1000
length of beach surveyed (m)	500	100 (all items)
		1000 (items >0.5 m across)
sample frequency (days)	28 ± 3	90 (approx.)a
type of litter recorded	31 indicator items	all debris (111 categories)
other criteria	no regular cleaning	distant from sources (rivers)
	no impact on threatened species	visually/frequently littered

^aLitter is not removed at some OSPAR sites and some sites are also cleaned by local municipalities (Barbara Wenneker in litt.).