Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter
Prevention of marine littering in the Nordic region through awareness raising work and knowledge-based decisions.
Together against marine litter
The Nordic Coastal Tour gathers people from all over the Nordic countries to help save our coasts from litter. Close to 200 000 people have joined the movement so far.
Marine litter is one of the world’s largest environmental threats, and in recent years both knowledge and awareness of the problem has increased across the world as well as in the Nordic countries. To combat this problem, the world must focus on litter prevention as well as on cleanup actions.
The main aim of the Nordic Coastal Tour is to mobilize volunteers and pick litter from our beaches along the coast and inland along rivers and lakes throughout the Nordic countries. We also seek to fill the knowledge gap about the sources of marine litter in the Nordic countries by conducting beach monitoring and data collection.
Join the Nordic Cleanup Tour 2026! 🌊
In May and June, we invite you to take part in cleanups across the Nordic region as we celebrate our shared efforts to tackle marine litter.
The Nordic Cleanup Tour brings together partners across all Nordic countries under the Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter.
👉 Get in touch with the local organisers to join a cleanup near you:
Denmark: May 2nd
Iceland: May 6th
Finland: May 8th
Norway: May 9th
Sweden: May 26th
Åland: June 8th
Greenland: June 10th
Faroe Islands: June 20th
Our Results
Our findings support findings from both national monitoring projects as well as international projects such as OSPAR. The composition of marine litter in the Nordic countries is in general fairly similar across the region, and compared to international data, fisheries are a larger source of litter in the Nordic region than elsewhere in the world.
95% of the litter found on the reference beaches in 2024 was plastic.
During the period 2021–2025, Nordic Coastal Cleanup Day/Nordic Coastal Cleanup Tour has engaged more than 150,000 volunteers and removed over 500 tons of litter from nature
Historical data
All Nordic countries Norway Denmark Sweden Finland Åland Faroe Islands Iceland
Results 2025
In 2025, the Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter further refined its existing data collection protocol. The objective is to ensure harmonized data and enable the production of marine beach litter assessments across the Nordic region. However, the analysis has been constrained by structural limitations related to database access and data extraction. As a result, the dataset is smaller than originally intended and could not be assessed as initially planned.
The development of monitoring and assessment methodologies, as well as the harmonisation of litter lists, will continue.
Key findings from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Åland:
- Plastic fragments dominate the dataset, accounting for 38% of all items; combined small and large fragments exceed 40%.
- Fisheries-related items (e.g., plastic string/cord and net fragments) account for at least 12% of total litter.
- Consumer-related items (e.g., wrappers) are consistently present but in smaller shares; caps/lids and tobacco products each account for ~3%.
- Two of the top five categories are fisheries-related, two are untraceable plastic fragments, and one is linked to personal consumption, indicating multiple dominant sources in the Nordic region.
- The high share of plastic fragments suggests extensive secondary fragmentation of larger plastic items in the marine environment.
Key findings Iceland and Faroe Islands:
- Plastic fragments dominate (25%), though at a lower share than in the harmonised dataset.
- Glass and ceramic fragments account for 17% of total litter, indicating stronger land-based or shoreline inputs.
- Fisheries-related items (e.g., dolly rope) represent 8% of total litter.
- Large metal items (>50 cm) suggest contributions from maritime or coastal infrastructure.
- Most top-five categories consist of fragments of various materials with largely unknown sources; 85% of these items were recorded in the Faroe Islands.
Conclusions:
- Plastic fragments constitute the single largest category in both datasets. It confirms that secondary fragmentation of plastics is a dominant characteristic of Nordic coastal litter, regardless of protocol used.
- Fisheries-related items appear prominently in both datasets indicating a consistent fisheries contribution across Nordic coastal environments, although relative shares vary by region.
Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter Network Conference
In 2025, the Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter Network gathered for its annual conference. Over two days, participants shared inspiration and knowledge on the issue of litter on Nordic beaches and discussed effective measures to address it.
Future projects were planned, and the development of a joint protocol for monitoring beach litter in the Nordic region was explored. Key speakers included Signe Davidson and Hans Jakob Eriksen, Nordic Counsil of Ministers.
Member Countries
Finland & Åland
Contact
Finland: Julia Jännäri, julia.jannari@pssry.fi
Åland: Kimberly Terry, kimberly.terry@pssry.fi
Faroe Island
Contact
Beinta Gaard Davidsen, bgd@hotmail.dk
Annika Arnsteinsdóttir Nielsen, annika.a.nielsen@gmail.com
Nordic beach litter monitoring
Knowledge is important, and more data about what type of litter that ends up on our beaches is essential to be able to implement effective and targeted measures against litter. That is why we do monitor of beach litter. We use a modification of the OSPAR methodology and have developed a Nordic protocol based on Ocean Conservancy's protocol. The Nordic mapping protocol contains fewer litter categories as well as being specifically developed for the Nordic countries. A common Nordic protocol ensures the use of the same methodology in all countries and forms the basis for collecting comparable data from all sites.
Methodology
1. The areas to be mapped are divided into 100 x 10 meter transects.
2. The litter is divided between 20 different categories of litter.
3. If possible, identify litter originating outside the Nordic countries.
4. Each country is responsible for monitoring three areas; an urban, peri-urban and rural area.
5. The protocol differentiates areas that lie along the north, south, east, or west coasts.
Participants
The Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter consists of 7 organisations. CSR Greenland, Ren Natur (Denmark), Keep Norway Beautiful, Keep Sweden Tidy, World Wide Friends, Keep the Archipelago Tidy (Finland and Åland) and Rudda Føroyar (Faroe Island) are all part of the network. We choose to join forces because collaboration makes us stronger and because we share a common vision of a sustainable future and a healthy ocean!
Read our policy brief
This report is based on the work on the Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter project in 2017 and 2018. Nordic Alliance on Marine Litter is a collaborative project between seven Nordic partners who together aim to contribute to the work against marine litter in the Nordic region: CSR Greenland, Ren Natur (Denmark), Keep Norway Beautiful, Keep Sweden Tidy, World Wide Friends, Keep the Archipelago Tidy and Rudda Føroyar (Faroe Island). The report describes voluntary clean-up as a tool to combat marine litter and presents the results from the Nordic beach litter monitoring. On the basis of the project participants' experiences and the knowledge gained through the project, a number of recommendations are presented for the Nordic region's further work against marine litter.