Fulmars are effective biological indicators of the abundance of floating plastic marine debris. Long-term
data reveal high plastic abundance in the southern North Sea, gradually decreasing to the north at
increasing distance from population centres, with lowest levels in high-arctic waters. Since the 1980s,
pre-production plastic pellets in North Sea fulmars have decreased by ~75%, while user plastics varied
without a strong overall change. Similar trends were found in net-collected floating plastic debris in the
North Atlantic subtropical gyre, with a ~75% decrease in plastic pellets and no obvious trend in user
plastic. The decreases in pellets suggest that changes in litter input are rapidly visible in the environment
not only close to presumed sources, but also far from land. Floating plastic debris is rapidly “lost” from
the ocean surface to other as-yet undetermined sinks in the marine environment.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license