Our research efforts dedicated to this issue began in 2012, when investigating debris on the seafloor using remotely operated vehicles (Pham et al. 2013; 2014). Since then, we have expanded the scope of our research to other compartments and are working closely with local authorities to provide sound scientific information on the scale of the issue in line with their action plan against marine litter (PALMA).
 
The overarching goal of our research is to quantify the abundance of debris across different marine compartments and assess the level of threats by developing an ecological risk assessment framework of plastic in the Azores region. Within the framework of different regionally and EU-funded projects, we have developed a series of activities including (1) monitoring programs for quantifying macro and microplastics stranded along the island’s coastlines and floating at the surface; (2) quantification of plastic ingestion by different components of the food-web; (3) assessment of pollutants and heavy metals associated with plastics debris; (4) evaluation of the socio-economic implications of pollution by marine debris.