South African Macro-, Meso-, and Micro-Plastics (SAMP) Network

One of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 14, "Life below water," is to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds, particularly that produced by activities carried out on land, including plastic debris. To achieve this objective, indicator 14.1.1.b "Density of Plastic Waste" was established. This indicator includes several parameters to be monitored and reported, including potential measurements of plastics debris in beach sand and floating on the sea surface. It is important for policy making and implementation for these estimations to be based on concrete scientific knowledge. One of the key issues is that there are several techniques used by scientists to determine this density yielding datasets that are not comparable. The South African (Macro-, Meso-, Micro-) Plastic (SAMP) programme aims to standardize the collection, analysis and data reporting of plastic pollution. 

Established by Ocean Research, DFFE, SAMP is a monitoring programme consisting of a network of departmental and voluntary researchers from South Africa that aims to gain baseline information on macro-, meso- and micro-plastic research in South Africa.