Preliminary Study of Marine Debris Composition from Fisherman Activities : A Case Study on Cikidang Fishing Port, Pangandaran

Abstract Marine debris pollution has become an important issue in recent years. It has an impact on marine environment and marine life, as well as effecting human health. The objective of this study was to identify the composition of waste that was produced from the fishermen’s activities. The research was conducted in Cikidang Fishing Port, Pangandaran. The data of waste types from fishing vessel were grouped based on the vessel’s dimension. The result show that plastics dominated the waste composition, and based on the vessel dimension when compared the amount of waste generated, the amount of waste from one day fishing (small vessel) was greater than the ten days fishing (big vessel). The amount of waste generated from small vessel was 0.009 tons-1.vessel-1.year-1, meanwhile from big vessel was 0.09 tons-1.vessel-1.years-1. This indicates that the fishers habit to dispose waste not in the right place can become a potential source of marine debris pollution. Maintaining the quality of fishery products is very important starting from improving the fisherman behaviour to the fishing port facilities to achieve the sustainability fishery product.