According to a study by the Spanish National Research Council led by Spain's University of Cadiz and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, all of the oceans in the world have plastic debris on the surface.

"Ocean currents carry plastic objects, which split into smaller and smaller fragments due to solar radiation," Andrés Cózar, study co-author and researcher for the University of Cadiz, said in a release. "Those little pieces of plastic, known as microplastics, can last hundreds of years and were detected in 88 percent of the ocean surface sampled during the Malaspina Expedition 2010."

Most of the plastic residues found in the study, "Plastic debris in the open ocean," were polyethylene and polypropylene. These are polymers used in plenty of everyday items from plastic bags, to food storage containers, to toys and more. Still, the report notes that there was "far less than expected" amounts of plastic.

Carlos Duarte, a co-author of the report and oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, told Science Mag that the team "can't account for 99 percent of the plastics in the ocean." This could be because marine life is eating the plastic debris and passing it through the food chain.

"On one hand, the tiny plastic fragments often accumulate contaminants that, if swallowed, can be passed to organisms during digestion," Cózar said. "On the other hand, the abundance of floating plastic fragments allows many small organisms to sail on them and colonize places they could not access to previously."

Cózar said that there is still much to learn about the affects of plastic pollution of our oceans.

"There is potential for this plastic to enter the global ocean food web, and we are part of this food web," Duarte told Science Mag.

Over 400 researchers contributed to the Malaspina Circumnavigation Expedition 2010, which lasted for nine months on the Spanish Armada's Hespérides ship and the Sarmiento de Gamboa ship. Over 200,000 water, plankton, atmosphere particles and gas samples were taken from 313 different places at up to 6,000 meters of depth.
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