**5. Conclusions**

The few available studies in the area prove the ubiquity of plastic pollution in the Adriatic Sea. The peculiar oceanographic conditions as well as the high levels of plastic debris recorded in all investigated matrices tend to classify such enclosed area as a hot spot of plastic contamination. Despite the distribution and circulation models appear to accurately estimate fluxes and final fate of marine plastic debris, sinks, sources, fate and residence times of different polymers at sea are the knowledge gaps that need to be addressed in the future to provide concrete info to support concrete actions toward plastic contamination reduction and remediation solutions.

## **Acknowledgements**

The authors wish to thank The International Research Institute of Stavanger and the National Research Council of Italy- Institute of Marine Science for technical assistance and financial support to publish this work.

### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

*Plastics in the Environment* 
