On November 28, EU Member States agreed on new limits for litter allowed on the seafloor - an essential step towards reducing marine pollution and the first effort to set such thresholds. Under the new rules, areas where seafloor litter is measured using trawl surveys must show no increase in the amount of litter over time. In areas monitored visually, there must be no more than one litter item per 1000 square metres. Current assessments will focus on waters up to a depth of 200 metres. Technical work will continue in the coming years, including the possibility of setting additional limits for the most harmful types of litter and extending monitoring to deeper waters.
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