Consumer products often use multiple layers of protective, single-use packaging. These items generate a rapidly expanding volume of waste as they are typically disposed of after a brief, one-time use. Once in landfill or the environment, SUPs can persist for centuries. In remote areas, this debris is difficult and costly to remove, and monitoring is essential to understanding the scale of the issue. Using long-term monitoring transects established on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the remote Indian Ocean, we estimate the proportion of beach debris that is comprised of SUPs during 2024–2026. Brand and barcode data, combined with surveys of staff from the local shops, were used to identify whether the SUPs originated locally on the islands or washed in from afar. In total, SUPs accounted for 42.3% of all debris recorded in transects, with plastic straws and lids accounting for 59.4% of the SUPs collected. Only one brand was available for sale locally on the islands; the remaining 98.4% of items likely originated offshore. This project highlights the critical role of community science in generating robust datasets, especially in remote areas, and demonstrates the urgent need for SUP, and broader waste reduction policy, at an international scale.

In this study, we document the occurrence of two rarely recorded Amphibalanus species associated with marine debris. Although their biogeographic status remains unclear, their association with marine debris and potential dispersal via floating substrates remain poorly understood. By examining barnacles encrusted on a buoy washed ashore in Okinawa, Japan, we provide detailed morphological descriptions and the first publicly accessible COI and H3 sequences for both species. Their repeated association with floating substrates and the low genetic divergence observed among geographically distant populations of Amphibalanus zhujiangensis further support the potential role of marine debris in facilitating their dispersal.

Marine plastic debris is transforming ecological boundaries in the Anthropocene. A rare attachment of the epibiotic barnacle, Chelonibia testudinaria, to floating plastic debris is reported here. Traditionally considered host-specific to marine vertebrates, this finding challenges the strict biological dependence of this species. The barnacle was firmly cemented to an artificial polymer, co-occurring with the coastal fouler Amphibalanus amphitrite. This observation suggests that marine plastics may serve not only as passive transport vectors but also as novel settlement substrates for host-associated epibionts, and that C. testudinaria may occasionally settle on artificial substrates under natural conditions.

Marine debris pollution is a growing problem impacting aquatic ecosystems, coastal recreation and human society. Beaches are known to be a sink for debris, and beaching needs to be accounted for in marine debris mass balances, but the process of buoyant debris beaching is not yet sufficiently well understood in order for it to be included in coastal models. We develop a simplified model for buoyant marine debris transport in bore-driven swash (where swash refers to the area that the water wets the beach with each incoming wave). We validate the model with laboratory experiments and use the combined results from the model and experiments to understand the parameters that are important for dictating particle beaching. The most relevant parameters are the particle inertia and the initial conditions with which debris particles enter the swash zone.

As we pass into an age of the Anthropocene, archaeologists, as scholars of other disciplines, are driven to consider how this physical and ideological climate change affects our craft, or how archaeology can contribute with knowledge and insight of significance in a shifting world. Basing its arguments on research conducted on marine debris and drift beaches in northern Norway and Iceland, the aim of this article is to imagine what kind of alternative ways of doing and thinking archaeology the current climate is calling for. With reference to this material, which conspicuously manifests both obstacles and promises for an ‘Anthropocene archaeology’, the article will question the worth of some perspectives traditionally considered essential to our discipline, while simultaneously building on confidence in a sincerely archaeological imagination.

The false killer whale Pseudorca crassidens is currently documented from only six eastern tropical Atlantic (ETA) range states, five of which are evidenced by strandings, by-catch or skeletal remains rather than at-sea sightings and consequently provide no information on habitat or behaviour. Here we report six false killer whale records from cetacean surveys carried out off Gabon (four records) and Côte d'Ivoire (two records) between 2002 and 2012, providing the first at-sea sightings in those two existing range states. All six sightings were located in continental shelf waters (≤103 m depth) and in relatively nearshore (mean = 13.9 km) habitat. Forty-three false killer whales were photo-identified during three encounters on the Gabonese shelf; seven individuals were matched between 2002 and 2006, including two individuals that were present during all three sightings. Observations included predation of Atlantic sailfish Istiophoms albicans and two occurrences in proximity to humpback whales Megaptera novaeangliae. Whistles recorded during one sighting had simple structure, short duration and a mean fundamental frequency of 7.8 kHz. These are the first verified records of false killer whales using continental shelf waters in the ETA, indicating that the species occupies neritic habitat in the region in addition to its previously-documented oceanic habitat. The re-sightings of marked individuals between sightings and years suggest that at least some individuals exhibit a degree of site fidelity to Gabonese shelf waters. Further information on distribution, abundance, movements, population structure and mortality rates are required for effective management of the species in the ETA.