NOAA NCEI Marine Microplastics Database

The NCEI Marine Microplastics product provides access to aggregated global data on microplastics in marine settings. Additionally, the product gives researchers and others access to information on ocean currents to enable a unified understanding of the global microplastic problem. The information is used to improve water quality and protect Earth's ecosystem, especially coastal ecological habitats such as salt marshes and mangrove forests that help recycle nutrients, serve as breeding grounds for fingerlings, and permanent homes for oysters and other coastal marine wildlife. This product can also be used to validate remote sensing technologies that identify and characterize microplastics from space.