theguardian: The report said the data represented only a snapshot, and as such it was difficult to estimate the volume of litter that was actually entering the North Sea this way. But scientists said the figures highlighted an underestimated problem.
"This underwater litter must be taken into account when estimating the amount of pollution entering our rivers and seas, not just those items that we can see at the surface and washed up onshore," said Dr Dave Morritt, senior lecturer in marine biology at Royal Holloway, University of London and co-author of Plastic in the Thames: A River Runs Through It, published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. "The potential impacts this could have for wildlife are far-reaching: not only are the species that live in and around rivers affected, but also those in seas that rivers feed into."