http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2014/05/09/deep-sea-survey-reveals-the-mysteries-of-the-deep-trash/

Deep-Sea Survey Reveals the Mysteries of the Deep: Trash

Posted On May 9, 2014 by Nick Mallos

Covering over 70 percent of our planet, the ocean is still largely
unexplored. Sailors and explorers have been traversing the seven seas
for centuries, but we?ve barely scratched the surface. In fact, more
people have been to the moon than have visited the ocean?s abyss, which
is why a recent scientific paper from the journal PLOS ONE is so
disconcerting.

In one of the largest scientific seafloor surveys to date, scientists
used remotely-operated vehicles and trawl nets to examine 32 deep-sea
sites in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, as well as the Mediterranean
Sea. The astonishing part?they found plastic bottles, fishing gear, and
other man-made debris in all of them. Some of the debris items found had
traveled more than 1,200 miles from the shore?most of it settling in
remote, deep-sea caverns.