The surge of research on marine litter is generating important information on its inputs, distribution and impacts, but data on the nature and origin of the litter remain scattered. Here, we harmonize worldwide litter-type inventories across seven major aquatic environments and find that a set of plastic items from take-out food and beverages largely dominates global litter, followed by those resulting from fishing activities. Compositional differences between environments point to a trend for litter to be trapped in nearshore areas so that land-sourced plastic is released to the open ocean, predominantly as small plastic fragments. The world differences in the composition of the nearshore litter sink reflected socioeconomic drivers, with a reduced relative weight of single-use items in high-income countries. Overall, this study helps inform urgently needed actions to manage the production, use and fate of the most polluting human-made items on our planet, but the challenge remains substantial.

对海洋垃圾的研究激增正在产生关于其输入、分布和影响的重要信息，但有关垃圾性质和来源的数据仍然分散。在这里，我们协调了七个主要水生环境的全球垃圾类型清单，发现外卖食品和饮料中的一组塑料物品在很大程度上主导了全球垃圾，其次是捕鱼活动产生的垃圾。环境之间的成分差异表明垃圾被困在近岸地区的趋势，因此陆源塑料被释放到公海，主要是小塑料碎片。近岸垃圾池构成的世界差异反映了社会经济驱动因素，高收入国家一次性物品的相对权重有所降低。全面的，