Table 2.

Densities and proportion of plastics among benthic marine litter worldwide (per number of items). M, Mediterranean Sea; B, Baltic Sea; NA, North Atlantic; NP, northern Pacific Ocean; WP, western Pacific Ocean; T, trawling; PT, pole trawling; SA, South Atlantic.

region	sea	method	item Ha–1	plastic (%)	references
NA	Bay of Biscay	T	1.42 ± 0.25	62.2	Galgani et al. (1995a)
M	NW Mediterranean	T	19.35 ± 6.33	77.1	Galgani et al. (1995b)
B	Baltic Sea	T	1.26 ± 0.82	35.7	Galgani et al. (2000)
NA	North Sea	T	1.56 ± 0.37	48.3	Galgani et al. (2000)
NA	Channel East	T	1.176 ± 0.067	84.6	Galgani et al. (2000)
NA	Bay of Seine	T	1.72 ± 0.058	89	Galgani et al. (2000)
NA	Celtic Sea	T	5.28 ± 2.47	29.5a	Galgani et al. (2000)
SA	Rio de la Plata	T	0–15.09	74	Acha et al. (2003)
M	Greece, 59 sites	T	149	55.5	Katsanevakis & Katsarou (2004)
M	Greece, Patras gulf	T	0.89–2.40	79–83	Stefatos et al. (1999)
M	W & S Greece	T	0.72–4.37	55.9	Koutsodendris et al. (2008)
M	Gulf of Lion	T	1.43 ± 0.19	70.5	Galgani et al. (2000)
M	East Corsica	T	2.29 ± 0.72	45.8	Galgani et al. (2000)
M	Adriatic Sea	T	3.78 ± 2.51	69.5	Galgani et al. (2000)
M	Sicily/Tunisia channel	T	4.01	75	Cannizarro et al. (1995)
M	Oriental basin	P T	5.85–161.98	37	Galil et al. (1995)
NP	Kodiak Island, Alaska	T	0.11–1.47	47–59	Hess et al. (1999)
NP	Oregon Coast	T	1.49	26a	June (1990)
NP	Bering Sea	T	0.075–0.51	27	June (1990)
NP	Norton Sound	T	2.49	49.0	June (1990)
WP	Tokyo Bay	T	2.70–5.50	40.1–41.6	Kanehiro et al. (1995)
WP	Tokyo Bay	T	1.85–3.38	48.3–58.9	Kuriyama et al. (2003)
WP	Eastern China Sea	T		<5	Lee et al. (2006)
WP	South Sea of Korea	T		<10	Lee et al. (2006)

^afishing area.