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To understand how microplastic pollution is affecting the ocean, scientists need to know how much is there and where it is accumulating. Most data on microplastic concentrations comes from commercial and research ships that tow plankton nets - long, cone-shaped nets with very fine mesh designed for collecting marine microorganisms.
Plastic fragments washed onto Schiavonea beach in Calabria, Italy, in a 2019 storm.
But net trawling can sample only small areas and may be underestimating true plastic concentrations. Except in the North Atlantic and North Pacific gyres - large zones where ocean currents rotate, collecting floating debris - scientists have done very little sampling for microplastics. And there is scant information about how these particles’ concentrations vary over time.