Plastic Soles: Microplastic Litter in the Gastrointestinal Tract of Solea solea from the Adriatic Sea

Plastic is widely used in everyday life being one of the more versatile materials ever produced. The rising demand of plastic items to support the societal development has dramatically boosted the annual plastic production from 1.5 in the 1950s to 311 million tonnes in 2014 (PlasticEurope in Plastic-the Facts 2015: an analysis of European plastic production, demand, and waste data, 2014). The dark side of the plastic revolution is the marine pollution, with an estimated amount of 9.5 million tonnes of new plastic waste flowing into the oceans each year (Boucher and Friot in Primary microplastics in the oceans: a global evaluation of sources. IUCN, Gland, p. 43, 2017).