We assessed the composition and abundance of macrodebris items as well as of mesoplastic particles on six sandy beaches on the island of São Vicente, Cape Verde, in the time period from May to July 2023. At all sites, macrodebris items (> 10 mm) of anthropogenic origin were collected along a 100 m transect that ran parallel to the waterline and covered the full width of the beach. Items were categorized following the OSPAR protocol for beach litter assessments (OSPAR Commission, 2010) and their abundances as well as their masses per transect were quantified. During the study, each beach was surveyed ten times with four-day intervals between the monitorings, which allowed to identify debris accumulation rates. Mesoplastic (1 – 10 mm) particles were extracted from the beach sediments following the frame method suggested by Haseler et al. (2018). At each beach, nine samples were taken, while three of them were from the back of the beach, three from the middle section and three from close to the waterline. For each sample, the upper 3 cm of the sediment within a 0.5 m2 square (= 15 L of sand) were sieved through a 1000 µm analytical sieve. Depending on the quality of the sand, the sediment was either washed through the sieve with seawater or was sieved dryly. Sieve residues were taken to a laboratory where they were inspected for the presence of plastic particles with the help of a stereomicroscope. Hyperspectral imaging was then used to verify whether the detected particles were plastics and to identify their polymer type (Beck et al., 2023). Furthermore, mesoplastic particles were characterized according to their shape and colour.