Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were measured in plastic resin pellets collected from 65 beaches across 27 countries worldwide. They were detected at 49 locations at concentrations of the sum of 49 congeners of up to 46 ng / g-pellet and a median of 2 ng/g-pellet. These values are one to two orders of magnitude lower than those of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) (median, 51 ng / g-pellet). This difference can be attributed to lower production of the Penta-BDE technical mixture, which is Environmental Monitoring & Contaminants Research Japan Society for Environmental Chemistry This article is licensed under a Creative Commons [Attribution 4.0 International] license.