CANBERRA, April 5 (Xinhua) -- World-first research has estimated up to 11 million tons of plastic pollution is sitting on the ocean floor.

In a study published on Friday, a team from Australian national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and Canada's University of Toronto used two predictive models to estimate the amount and distribution of plastic on the ocean floor.

Denise Hardesty, a CSIRO senior research scientist who contributed to the study, said it was a world-first estimate of how much plastic ends up on the ocean floor and where it accumulates.

"We know that millions of tons of plastic waste enter our oceans every year but what we didn't know is how much of this pollution ends up on our ocean floor," she said in a media release.

"We discovered that the ocean floor has become a resting place, or reservoir, for most plastic pollution, with between 3 to 11 million tons of plastic estimated to be sinking to the ocean floor."

The estimate was based on data from remote operated vehicles (ROVs) and bottom trawling of the ocean floor.

According to the ROV data, plastic mass on the ocean floor is concentrated around the continents, with 46 percent of the total residing at depths above 200 meters and the remaining 54 percent between 200 and 11,000 meters.

The research estimated that inland seas, which cover 11 percent of the Earth's surface area, hold as much plastic mass as oceans that cover 56 percent of the surface area. Enditem

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