Background: Plastics have conveyed great benefits to humanity and made possible some of
the most significant advances of modern civilization in fields as diverse as medicine …

Society has become increasingly reliant on plastics since commercial production began in
about 1950. Their versatility, stability, light weight, and low production costs have fueled …

The surge of research on marine litter is generating important information on its inputs,
distribution and impacts, but data on the nature and origin of the litter remain scattered …

Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem.
However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste …

The subtropical oceanic gyre in the North Pacific Ocean is currently covered with tens of
thousands of tonnes of floating plastic debris, dispersed over millions of square kilometres. A …

Predicted global figures for plastic debris accumulation in the ocean surface layer range on
the order of hundreds of thousands of metric tons, representing only a few percent of …

Microplastic (MP) pollution has spurred a wide range of concerns due to its ubiquity and
potential hazards to humans and ecosystems, yet studies on MP abundance, distribution …

Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to health of the ocean. Anthropogenic
debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on the shorelines …

The seafloor covers some 70% of the Earth's surface and has been recognised as a major
sink for marine litter. Still, litter on the seafloor is the least investigated fraction of marine …

We show that the high seas are colonized by a diverse array of coastal species, which
survive and reproduce in the open ocean, contributing strongly to its floating community …