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Plastic debris has now become the most serious problem affecting the marine environment, not only for coastal areas of developing countries that lack appropriate waste management infrastructures, but also for the world’s oceans as a whole because slowly degrading large plastic items generate microplastic (particles smaller than 1 to 5 mm) particles which spread over long distances by wind-driven ocean surface layer circulation.
Plastics contamination in the marine environment was first reported nearly fifty years ago, less than twenty years after the rise of commercial plastics production when less than 50 million metric tons were produced per year. In 2014, global plastics production surpassed 300 million metric tons per year. Plastic debris has been detected worldwide in all major marine habitats, in sizes from microns to meters.
