plastic pollution research topics

Plastic Pollution

By Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska and Max Roser

Plastic production has sharply increased over the last 70 years. In 1950, the world produced just two million tonnes. It now produces over 450 million tonnes.

Plastic has added much value to our lives: it’s a cheap, versatile, and sterile material used in various applications, including construction, home appliances, medical instruments, and food packaging.

However, when plastic waste is mismanaged – not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills – it becomes an environmental pollutant. One to two million tonnes of plastic enter our oceans yearly, affecting wildlife and ecosystems.

Improving the management of plastic waste across the world – especially in poorer countries, where most of the ocean plastics come from – is therefore critical to tackling this problem.

On this page, you can find all of our data, visualizations, and writing on plastic pollution.

You can also find a summary of this material in our slide deck .

Key Insights on Plastic Pollution

Plastic production has more than doubled in the last two decades.

The first synthetic plastic – Bakelite – was produced in 1907, marking the beginning of the global plastics industry.

However, rapid growth in global plastic production didn’t happen until the 1950s. Over the next 70 years, however, annual production of plastics has increased nearly 230-fold to 460 million tonnes in 2019.

Even just in the last two decades, global plastic production has doubled.

Around 0.5% of plastic waste ends up in the ocean

The world produces around 350 million tonnes of plastic waste each year.

Estimates vary, but recent high-quality studies suggest that between 1 and 2 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans annually. 1

That means 0.5% of plastic waste ends up in the ocean.

The chart shows that around one-quarter of plastic waste is mismanaged, meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or stored in sealed landfills. This makes it vulnerable to polluting the environment.

As shown in the chart, some of this is leaked to the environment; a further fraction makes its way to the ocean.

The probability that mismanaged plastic waste enters the ocean varies a lot across the world, depending on factors such as the location and length of river systems, proximity to coastlines, terrain, and precipitation patterns.

What you should know about this data

• This data comes from the OECD’s Global Plastic Outlook. 2
• The model first uses estimates of the influx of plastics into natural environments based on widely-used metrics such as population density, GDP per capita, waste statistics, terrain and distances from rivers and coastlines.
• It then tries to model the transport and movement of plastics in these environments based on the density of plastics, and what is know about how they behave (for example, denser plastic tends to sink, whereas lighter plastics are buoyant and move towards the ocean).
• The uncertainties around these estimates are large. However, previous studies have found similar results, suggesting that around 1 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean each year. 3 Earlier estimates were as high at 8 million tonnes.

Most ocean plastics today come from middle-income countries

Rich countries tend to produce the most plastic waste per person.

But what’s most important for plastic pollution is how much of this waste is mismanaged, meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills. Mismanagement means it’s at risk of leaking to the environment.

Mismanaged waste tends to be much higher in low-to-middle-income countries. This is because these countries tend to have poorer waste management infrastructure.

As is shown in the chart, most plastic flowing into the ocean today comes from middle-income countries – particularly across Asia. 4

Where does the plastic in our oceans come from?

Which countries and rivers emit the most plastic to the ocean? What does this mean for solutions to tackle plastic pollution?

• This data comes from the study by Lourens Meijer et al. (2021), which uses updated methods to estimate national and regional plastic inputs to the ocean. 5
• It combines estimates of mismanaged waste with high-resolution mapping of factors such as terrain, winds, precipitation, and river patterns to estimate how likely mismanaged waste is to be carried from rivers to the ocean.
• Previous studies have given similar regional estimates. A 2017 study estimated that Asian countries contributed 86% of plastic emissions to the ocean. 6

Only a small share of plastic gets recycled

While we might think that much of the world’s plastic waste is recycled, only 9% is.

Half of the world’s plastic still goes straight to landfill. Another fifth is mismanaged – meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills – putting it at risk of being leaked into rivers, lakes, and the ocean.

This chart gives the breakdown of waste management strategies across regions.

Waste management varies greatly: incineration is high in Europe, while three-quarters of plastics in the United States go to landfills.

Better waste management is key to ending plastic pollution

Improving waste management strategies is crucial to ending plastic pollution.

It is a solvable problem, and making a difference here would do much more to reduce plastic pollution than even considerably reducing plastic production. Even if the world used half as much, we’d still have significant amounts of plastic flowing into our rivers and oceans.

To end plastic pollution, waste needs to be adequately managed. Around one-fifth of plastics are still mismanaged, meaning they are not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills.

The amount of mismanaged plastic waste varies across the world but tends to be much higher in low-to-middle-income countries. This is shown in the chart in per capita terms.

Domestic policies to improve waste management will be crucial, but richer countries can also contribute through foreign investments in waste management infrastructure.

Explore Data on Plastic Pollution

Research & writing.

How much plastic waste ends up in the ocean?

Around 0.5% of plastic waste ends up in the ocean. Most of it stays close to the shoreline.

Hannah Ritchie

Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribute by shipping their waste overseas?

Many countries ship plastic waste overseas. How much of the world’s waste is traded, and how big is its role in the pollution of our oceans?

More Key Articles on Plastic Pollution

How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from plastics, most plastic in the great pacific garbage patch comes from the fishing industry, interactive charts on plastic pollution.

OECD (2022), Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/de747aef-en.

Meijer, L. J., Van Emmerik, T., Van Der Ent, R., Schmidt, C., & Lebreton, L. (2021). More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean. Science Advances, 7(18), eaaz5803.

But this was not always the case: richer countries have been polluting the oceans for longer periods. If we look at accumulated stocks of plastics in the ocean, higher-income countries across Europe and North America play a larger role than they do today.

Meijer, L. J., Van Emmerik, T., Van Der Ent, R., Schmidt, C., & Lebreton, L. (2021). More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean. Science Advances, 7(18).

Lebreton, L. C., Van der Zwet, J., Damsteeg, J. W., Slat, B., Andrady, A., & Reisser, J. (2017). River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans. Nature Communications, 8, 15611.

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The COVID-19 pandemic reshapes the plastic pollution research – A comparative analysis of plastic pollution research before and during the pandemic

a School of Economics and Management, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, People's Republic of China

b School of Economics and Management, Tiangong University, Tianjin, 300387, People's Republic of China

c Institute for Energy Economics and Policy, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, People's Republic of China

Rongrong Li

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated plastic pollution worldwide. So has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the research on plastic pollution? This work aims to explore the impact of the pandemic on plastic pollution research by comprehensively assessing the current status and prospects of plastic pollution research before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. A collection of publications on the topic of plastic pollution in the Web of Science database concludes that the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the plastic pollution research: (i) The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the trend of plastic pollution publication output. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of publications on the topic of plastic pollution has shown a significant increase trend; (ii) The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed the global research landscape of research on the plastic pollution. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, more and more countries have begun to pay attention to plastic pollution. Before the pandemic, developed countries were global leaders in plastic pollution research. However, during the pandemic, developing countries began to have a significant share in the quality, quantity and international cooperation of publications; (iii) The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined the major hotspots of plastic pollution research. The focus of research has changed significantly since the pandemic. Solving plastic pollution has become a major research content. During the epidemic, in-depth research on microplastics was conducted. The results of mining the publications on plastic pollution show that there is currently no effective solution to plastic pollution caused by the COVID-19. However, given the seriousness of controlling plastic pollution, it is very necessary to continue to carry out more research.

1. Introduction

At the end of December 2019, the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) first appeared in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). After the emergence of the virus, it spread rapidly in all countries and regions in the world. Therefore, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020 ( Organization, 2020 ). COVID-19 not only harms people's health and the world economy, but also threatens the sustainability of the environment ( Sharma et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022b ; Wang and Zhang, 2021 ). Among them, the sudden surge in demand for plastic products is one of the serious impacts of the epidemic on the environment.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, plastic pollution has increased. COVID-19 is a severe respiratory syndrome ( Ghebreyesus, 2020 ), with multiple transmission mechanisms and routes, including direct transmission between people and indirect air transmission, etc. ( Noorimotlagh et al., 2021a ; Vosoughi et al., 2021 ), and it is extremely contagious. Based on these approaches, personal protective equipment (PPE) (containing large amounts of plastic) such as masks and gloves are recommended to prevent the spread of the virus ( Marzoli et al., 2021 ), leading to a surge in plastic waste ( Aalto-Korte et al., 2007 ; Aslan et al., 2013 ; Lee et al., 2019 ). At the same time, plastic is one of the important components of medical equipment and protective equipment. Due to the outbreak of the epidemic, the use of PPE such as masks and protective clothing by medical staff has increased significantly, and they are discarded after one-time use, resulting in a large amount of medical plastic waste, which seriously threatens the ecological environment ( Organization, 2016 ; Torres and De-la-Torre, 2021 ; Walker, 2020 ). In order to control the spread of COVID-19, countries around the world have adopted various levels of containment measures to limit the movement of people ( Arthi and Parman, 2021 ; Michie, 2020 ; Yip et al., 2021 ). Thus, consumption patterns have gradually shifted from offline to online ( Hobbs, 2020 ), and the increasing demand for plastic packaging products including medicines, online food and groceries has become the main source of plastic waste during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Scaraboto et al., 2020 ; Singh, 2020 ). In addition, the plastic waste management system is also facing severe challenges ( Vanapalli et al., 2021 ). During the COVID-19 outbreak, medical waste has grown exponentially every day. In Wuhan, China, medical waste has increased from the normal level of 40 tons/day to a peak of about 240 tons/day, exceeding the maximum incineration volume of 49 tons/day ( Klemeš et al., 2020 ). And the medical waste disposal in many cities was overloaded ( Tang, 2020 ).

In response to the current crisis, scholars are increasingly turning their attention to the plastic pollution research. Research on the COVID-19 pandemic and plastic pollution has become a hot topic at present. Since the beginning of the epidemic, a large number of relevant studies have been published on the plastic pollution. In this context, whether the COVID-19 epidemic has affected the scientific research of plastic pollution is a question worthy of discussion. Therefore, this article synthesizes the existing knowledge system in this field based on published articles and research results, aiming to study the research status of plastic pollution before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then explore whether the COVID-19 epidemic has changed the plastic pollution research.

2. Literature review

Plastic pollution is widespread worldwide. Plastic pollution refers to the accumulation of plastic products in the environment. Plastics are widely present in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems around the world ( Rochman, 2018 ). They are a complex pollutant that can cause a variety of sublethal and lethal effects ( Paul-Pont et al., 2018 ; Underwood et al., 2016 ). The global production and use of plastic products are increasing, and plastic pollution has become a serious transboundary threat to natural ecosystems and human health ( Patrício Silva et al., 2021 ). The outbreak of COVID-19 has exacerbated the severity of plastic pollution, and related literature has also increased significantly. Table 1 shows some relevant literature on plastic pollution.

Research on plastic pollution.

According to Table 1 , it can be seen that numerous scholars have conducted a systematic review of the relevant literature in order to grasp the characteristics and current status of plastic pollution. Bucci et al. conducted a systematic review of the plastic fragment literature based on meta-analyses and systematic reviews to determine the status of evidence regarding the effects of macroplastics and microplastics on freshwater, marine, and terrestrial organisms at all levels of biological tissues ( Bucci et al., 2020 ). Based on the research of plastic pollution, Li et al. summarized the main characteristics of plastic pollution in the environment and proposed the research trend of future work ( Akdogan and Guven, 2019 ; Li et al., 2020 ). Blettler et al. conducted a bibliometric analysis of papers on the topic of freshwater plastic pollution, and determined the knowledge gaps and research biases ( Blettler et al., 2018 ). The status of plastic pollution in marine ecosystems and terrestrial systems has also been explored ( Thushari and Senevirathna, 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2020a ). Moreover, research on the COVID-19 epidemic and plastic pollution has aroused strong attention from scholars. For example, emphasized the impact of COVID-19 on plastic waste ( Vanapalli et al., 2021 ). Summarized the impact of COVID-19 on large plastic pollution and its potential impact on the environment and human health in the short and long term ( Patrício Silva et al., 2021 ). In view of the importance of plastics during the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, after summarizing the main applications and consequences of plastics, potential strategies to overcome these challenges and some possible solutions have also been heatedly discussed ( de Sousa, 2020 , 2021 ; Patrício Silva et al., 2021 ).

The COVID-19 epidemic has clearly exceeded people's awareness of the threat of plastic pollution, forcing residents to increase their dependence on plastic in their lives, forming a new plastic waste plague ( Vanapalli et al., 2021 ). According to research, in order to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, some areas such as New York and Massachusetts have temporarily postponed or cancelled the ban on single-use plastic bags ( Bomey, 2020 ), which may re-inspire consumers to discard the culture that prohibits the use of plastics ( Prata et al., 2020 ). This hinders the long-term goal of transitioning to a circular economy. Also, the COVID-19 epidemic has brought new challenges to the plastic waste management ( Khoo et al., 2021 ). Related studies predicted that the number of plastic fragments will triple by 2030 ( Patrício Silva et al., 2021 ). Combating the danger of plastic pollution has become an important task for global governments, commercial companies and local communities ( Schnurr et al., 2018 ). Sarkodie and Owusu assessed the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on waste management ( Sarkodie and Owusu, 2021 ). Vanapalli et al. provided a forward-looking outlook on the damage caused by COVID-19 to plastic waste management, and also proposed future directions and recommendations for inclusive and sustainable plastic waste management ( Faezeh et al., 2021 ; Vanapalli et al., 2021 ).

In fact, in the existing research, even many scholars have reviewed the relevant literature on COVID-19 and plastic pollution. However, few studies have systematically reviewed the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on plastic pollution research. Many recent studies have addressed some aspects of the impact of COVID-19 ( Maleki et al., 2021 ; Noorimotlagh et al., 2021b ; Wang et al., 2022a ). Bibliometrics is an information analysis method widely used in academia. It can make full use of the existing knowledge base to comprehensively analyze the results of previous research and provide a more objective and reliable analysis ( Rongrong et al., 2017 ). The use of bibliometric methods to analyze the scientific results related to recent public health emergencies can help reveal the specific contributions made by the academic community to solve the health crisis ( Zhang et al., 2020b ). Currently, bibliometric research is playing an increasingly important role in responding to international public health emergencies. Therefore, this article use bibliometric analysis to systematically review the research literature on plastic pollution contained in the Web of Science (WOS) database, and innovatively compare and analyze the publication output, the global research pattern and research hotspots before and during the epidemic. The specific contributions are as follows: Firstly, analyze the output trend of publications on the plastic pollution. Secondly, through the geographical distribution of publications and cooperation networks, explore the changes in the global research pattern of plastic pollution research before the pandemic and during the pandemic. Finally, by using clustering, mine the main research content of plastic pollution research in the five years before and during the pandemic.

3. Material and methods

3.1. research design.

In order to discuss the changes in plastic pollution research before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we mainly start from three major perspectives: the publication output pattern, the global research landscape and the research hotspot. The literature on plastic pollution in the WOS Core Collection database is systematically reviewed through bibliometric. In order to show the global plastic pollution research status before and during COVID-19, we create and compare two data sets: (a) publications on plastic pollution research from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019; (b) publications on plastic pollution research from January 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021. As COVID-19 broke out in December 2019, we chose January 1, 2020 as the starting point for COVID-19 to ensure the timeliness and pertinence of this article. Therefore, the publication data set from January 1, 2020 to August 31, 2021 represents publications during the COVID-19 period. The five-year data from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019 is used as a publication indicator before the COVID-19 pandemic to compare with the research status during the COVID-19 period. This article will follow the standard scientific drawing workflow, divided into four stages for analysis: (1) design research questions; (2) determine the database, keywords and time range; (3) collect data; (4) display and analyze the results. Fig. 1 shows the specific research framework of this study.

Workflow of the system analysis.

3.2. Methodology

3.2.1. bibliometrics.

Bibliometrics is an advanced technology used to summarize, analyze and visualize various disciplines ( Liao et al., 2018 ). It is an effective comprehensive knowledge evaluation system that combines mathematics, statistics and linguistics. Bibliometrics can help researchers grasp the basic structure, development hotspots, development trends and other information of the research field by analyzing a large amount of historical document data. In addition, the bibliometric analysis method focuses on the overall research of the literature, organically combines qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, breaking the limitations of traditional information analysis methods that cannot be quantified and repeatable. Bibliometrics is an important tool to analyze large-scale research literature and determine the development status and research results of a field. It has been widely used to reveal the research status of various research fields. Therefore, in this research, we use bibliometric methods to objectively describe and summarize the research status of plastic pollution.

3.2.2. Visual analysis

Network vision analysis visualizes the analysis results by mapping the knowledge domain. Visual analysis can draw a complex knowledge domain into a visual knowledge graph through data mining, information processing and knowledge measurement, reveal the dynamic development of the knowledge domain, and help users quickly obtain applicable scientific intelligence information. In addition, by visualizing research results, work efficiency can be improved, and errors caused by manual analysis can be reduced or avoided, which greatly improves the accuracy and reliability of the results. Many software tools can be used to support bibliometric analysis, such as VOSviewer, CiteSpace, BibExcel, R, CitNetExplorer, SciMAT, VantagePoint and Gephi. This article mainly uses VOSviewer and CiteSpace visualization software to visualize the retrieved data. CiteSpace and VOSviewer are information visualization software developed using Java language ( Chen and C., 2004 ). They can combine data mining algorithms, bibliometrics and information visualization ( Kou et al., 2021 ), and can be used to make maps to visualize bibliographic network data. CiteSpace and VOSviewer software take into account the dual characteristics of “graph” and “spectrum”, which are both a visualized knowledge graph and a serialized knowledge pedigree. They can centrally display the evolution of knowledge in a certain field on a map, presenting many potentially complex relationships between knowledge and information, such as networks, structures, intersections, or derivations. Furthermore, CiteSpace and VOSviewer can also be used to construct and visualize the co-occurrence network of important terms extracted from publications, so as to accurately capture scientific frontiers, hotspots and trends in specific fields. They have become popular knowledge graph drawing tools and are widely used. It is applied to many fields of bibliographic analysis. Therefore, we use VOSviewer to conduct national co-occurrence analysis to determine the international cooperation networks for plastic pollution research before and during the pandemic, and use CiteSpace to draw the hotspot cluster views of plastic pollution research before and during the pandemic.

3.2.3. Text cluster analysis

In order to better analyze the difference between the research topics of plastic pollution before and during the pandemic, and fully grasp the hot spots in the field of plastic pollution research, we need to use the text clustering method to perform cluster co-occurrence analysis on keywords. Co-word clustering analysis adopts the clustering calculation method to perform correlation calculations according to the co-occurrence frequency of keywords ( Zhong et al., 2008 ), and classifies closely related words to obtain the topic network to observe the evolution trajectory of subject knowledge ( Ca Llon et al., 1991 ; Law and Whittaker, 1992 ). Keyword is usually the core and essence of an article, it is a high-level generalization and refinement of the topic of the article. Therefore, keyword analysis allows people to determine the current research focus by summarizing the content of commonly used keywords. Keyword cluster analysis is the basis for distinguishing the frontiers of research in this field. It can reveal the turning points of research fields and themes, and clarify the links between fields ( Qin et al., 2014 ). Author keywords can reflect the issues involved in the article and the author's preference, so the author keywords are more suitable for describing the research focus and characteristics of the article ( Wang et al., 2012 , 2017 ). Consequently, we analyze the author keywords in this study through keyword clustering and network analysis.

3.3. Data collection

High-quality shared data is the key to understanding, managing and mitigating the impact of the epidemic. The data collected in this paper comes from the WOS Core Collection database ( Gong et al., 2019 ). The WOS Core Collection is a high-quality digital database that covers a wide range of publications from different fields and is a comprehensive citation database with wide coverage ( Archambault et al., 2006 ; Mongeon et al., 2016 ). Databases such as WOS and Scopus are the main data sources for bibliometric analysis. Many studies have compared these mainstream databases and found that WOS and Scopus produce similar results in bibliometric analysis and have good consistency ( Archambault et al., 2009 ; Falagas et al., 2008 ; Norris and Oppenheim, 2007 ). Of course, there are differences between the WOS and Scopus databases. Scopus contains a wider coverage of publications and more related bibliometric data than WOS ( Meho and Rogers, 2008 ; Wang et al., 2021a ). On the other hand, according to related studies, WOS can provide higher quality data, including a complete record of each article and detailed citation analysis, which makes data processing more efficient ( Lopes and de Carvalho, 2018 ; Martín-Martín et al., 2018 ; Odriozola-Fernández et al., 2019 ). And in terms of social sciences and humanities, WOS is recommended because of its high proportion of exclusive journals ( Mongeon and Paul-Hus, 2016 ; Norris and Oppenheim, 2007 ). The WOS Core Collection has always maintained strict journal selection standards and evaluation process, and its journal evaluation standards have been recognized by the international academic community. At present, a large number of articles use WOS as a data source for bibliometric analysis, and reliable conclusions can be obtained ( Gao et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Zhang and Liang, 2020 ). Therefore, we selecte the relevant documents to be retrieved from the WOS Core Collection database and collecte the data to carry out the corresponding research. The search field used in this study is TS, which contains title, abstract, and keywords. Keywords retrieved include “plastic pollution” and “plastic waste” and so on. The time range is 2015–2021, and the search time is August 31, 2021. According to the search criteria, a total of 3729 articles were obtained through strict and systematic search. Subsequently, the screening work was carried out. This study selecte documents based on the following criteria: (1) delete non-English articles and only use English articles; (2) select articles whose document types are “Article” and “Review”; (3) delete articles that are not related to plastic pollution, and select articles that are closely related to the scope of this article. A total of 56 articles were deleted. Eventually, 3673 articles published on the WOS database were obtained, of which 1550 articles were published from 2015 to 2019, and 2123 articles were published from 2020 to 2021. All data are exported as complete records for result analysis. Fig. 2 shows the research data collection process.

Data collection flow chart.

4. Results and analysis

4.1. trend of global plastic pollution publications output.

The amount of scientific literature in a field is an important indicator to evaluate the research ability of the group in this field, and it is also extremely important for evaluating the current development of the field. According to statistics, the annual change trend of the total number of publications and the daily average number of publications is shown in Fig. 3 . Between 2015 and 2021, 3,673 papers on the plastic pollution are included in the WOS database. Since 2015, the total number of scientific publications on the subject of plastic pollution has been increasing, especially the number of publications in 2020 is as high as 1,088, with an average annual increase of 470. The daily average number of publications on the plastic pollution research also shows an upward trend. What is more obvious is that from 2019 to 2021, the daily average number of publications has increased rapidly. In 2019, the average daily number of publications is 1.693. But in 2021, it reaches 4.295. This may be related to the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019. After the WHO declared that COVID-19 became a PHEIC on January 30, 2020, government agencies and research institutes around the world have launched a large number of relevant studies to alleviate the challenges posed by COVID-19. We also observe that the total number of publications from 2020 to 2021 (2,123 publications) is much higher than that in the five years of 2015–2019 (1,550 publications). Also, the daily average number of publications from 2020 to 2021 is 1.712 times that of 2015–2019. This shows that after the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, global attention to plastic pollution has increased, and many scholars have conducted a large number of continuous studies to responding to the challenges posed by the epidemic to plastic pollution management.

Annual change trend of the total number of publications and daily average number of publications (2015–2021). Note: Since 2021 has not yet ended, the data time range of 2021 is from January 1, 2021 to August 31, 2021.

4.2. Comparative analysis of global research landscape before and during COVID-19

In this section, we conduct a comparative analysis of the global research landscape before and during COVID-19 to discuss the changes in plastic pollution research.

4.2.1. Geographical distribution of publications

The global geographic distribution of related research work can show the different research capabilities of countries/regions. In order to show the state of scientific production in various countries, the information that authors record in publications is used to track their countries and then to calculate the total number of publications in those countries. Table 2 , Table 3 show the performance of publications in the top ten productive countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, respectively. Fig. 4 , Fig. 5 respectively show the global distribution of publications in these two time periods. In the map, different colors are used to distinguish the country/region's active participation in plastic pollution research.

The number of publications and total citations of the top ten productive countries before COVID-19 pandemic (2015–2019).

The number of publications and total citations of the top ten productive countries during COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021).

Geographical distribution of plastic pollution publications (2015–2019).

Geographical distribution of plastic pollution publications (2020–2021).

According to statistics, 105 countries participated in research related to plastic pollution during 2015–2019. Most of these countries are located in Asia, Europe and America, and Oceania is also an important part. At the national level, the color of the United States on the map is closest to red, indicating that the United States ranks first in the number of publications, with a total of 191 articles, ahead of other countries. Followed by China (187 publications) and the United Kingdom (142 publications). India (137 publications) and Australia (117 publications) are ranked fourth and fifth respectively, followed by Spain, Germany, France, and Canada. Moreover, in terms of total citations, the United States ranks first in the world with 14,855 total citations, followed by the United Kingdom (8,311 citations) and Australia (8,116 citations). China and India have low total citations and rank relatively low. It can be observed that during this period, developed countries play a dominant role in plastic pollution research, and there is a gap between developing and developed countries in terms of the number of publications and the total citations.

From 2020 to 2021, 111 countries participated in plastic pollution research, which shows that since the epidemic, more and more countries have begun to pay attention to the development of plastic pollution. Regarding scientific production in various countries, the most relevant country is China, which has 318 publications. The ten most productive countries are shown in Table 3 : China (318 publications), the United States (275 publications), the United Kingdom (187 publications), India (177 publications), Italy (136 publications), Spain (135 publications), Germany (130 publications), Australia (126 publications), Canada (97 publications) and France (92 publications). Although the countries with higher productivity have not changed, the number of publications in these countries has increased significantly compared with before the epidemic, especially China. Secondly, from the perspective of the total citations, the country with the most citations is no longer the United States but China, with 1,976 citations, and India's citations and rankings have also risen. Therefore, it can be found again that COVID-19 has prompted all countries in the world to increase their research on plastic pollution, especially in developing countries such as China and India, which have made great progress in the quantity and quality of publications.

4.2.2. Global cooperation

Fig. 6 shows the country co-authoring network before and during the pandemic. In the network map, nodes (circles) represent different countries, and the size of each node represents the number of publications. The degree of cooperation is explained by the line between the nodes, with a thicker line between two nodes representing a higher degree of cooperation between the two countries, and a thinner line representing a lower degree of cooperation between the countries.

The cooperation network of country/region during 2015–2019 (left) and 2020–2021 (right).

It can be seen from Fig. 6 that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of connections between countries in the network map increase, indicating that more countries have carried out international cooperation. The ties between most countries have been significantly strengthened. Before the pandemic, cooperation among countries in this field is mainly concentrated in developed countries and many cooperative groups are formed, while the cooperation from developing countries is less. However, during the pandemic, a large number of cooperative researches are conducted between developing countries and developed countries.

According to the analysis in this section, we can draw conclusions that the epidemic has changed the global landscape of plastic pollution research. The outbreak of COVID-19 has prompted various countries in the world to strengthen research on plastic pollution.

4.3. Comparative analysis of research hotspots before and during COVID-19

In this section, we conduct a comparative analysis of the research hotspots of plastic pollution before and during COVID-19 to explore the changes in plastic pollution research. Knowledge cluster analysis and evolutionary research are the basis for distinguishing the frontiers of research in this field, which can reveal the turning points of research fields and research topics, and clarify the connections between fields. The cluster view can show the distribution of research fields from different angles. It is a visual classification of existing research results, which is convenient for researchers to sort out the complicated data information efficiently. Therefore, the cluster graph generated by CiteSpace information visualization software is used to track the research hotspots in the research process. Fig. 7 shows the changes in research hotspots during 2015-2019 and 2020–2021. Each # in the figure represents a cluster. There are six clusters in the plastic pollution research during 2015 to 2019, and the cluster labels are #0 plastic pollution, #1 pyrolysis, #2 biodegradation, #3 concrete, #4 nanoplastic and #5 reuse. The cluster labels for plastic pollution research in 2020–2021 are #0 pyrolysis, #1 microplastics, #2 circular economy, #3 microplastics, #4 marine debris, and #5 biodegradation. These cluster labels characterize the main research themes of plastic pollution research before and during the pandemic.

Keyword clustering network graph during 2015–2019 (left) and 2020–2021 (right).

Comparing the keyword cluster tags for the two time periods, it may reasonably conclude that the focus of research has changed significantly. With the challenges brought by the COVID-19 epidemic to the plastic pollution management, how to solve plastic pollution has become a hot topic, especially these cluster labels: pyrolysis, circular economy and biodegradation. So as to understand the main content of plastic pollution research, the clustering results for 2020–2021 are further analyzed.

• (a) Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis has always been a hot spot in the research of plastic pollution and related topics. It has been studied extensively both before and during COVID-19, especially during COVID-19. Although incineration is a common way to dispose of plastic waste ( Geyer et al., 2017 ), it has many negative effects on the environment ( Moharir and Kumar, 2019 ). Pyrolysis provides an environmentally friendly alternative to incineration and inefficient landfilling. Pyrolysis is the degradation of organic materials under heat and anaerobic conditions ( Qureshi et al., 2020 ), which converts plastic waste into fuel, such as pyrolyzing relevant wastes (gloves, masks, etc.) generated during COVID-19 and converting them into liquid oil and other products ( Al-Salem et al., 2017 ; Jung et al., 2021 ; Qin et al., 2018 ; Suresha et al., 2020 ). Pyrolysis provides an effective means of recovering energy and chemicals through carbon rearrangement. This alternative technology that converts plastic waste into value-added products can help turn the current COVID-19 crisis into an opportunity and reduce the negative impact of plastic waste on the environment and human health.

• (b) Microplastics

Notably, microplastics occupy two major clusters in plastic pollution research during the epidemic, becoming one of the strongest keywords in this area. Microplastics refer to plastic fragments and particles less than 5 mm in diameter. They are considered to be emerging persistent pollutants and have become an issue of increasing concern around the world. Microplastics originate from the fragmentation of large plastic garbage or direct environmental discharge ( de Souza Machado et al., 2018 ), and there are multiple sources of microplastics, as shown in Fig. 8 . Human activities (such as inefficient waste management practices and littering), physical properties of plastic particles (such as shape, size, and density), climatic conditions (such as rainfall intensity and wind speed), and topography can affect the deposition and retention of microplastics in the soil environment ( Karbalaei et al., 2018 ; Lei et al., 2018 ; Oliviero et al., 2019 ). In addition, other sources of microplastics in the terrestrial environment include household waste, personal care products, poorly managed solid waste landfills, etc. ( B et al., 2017 ; Rillig et al., 2017 ; Zs et al., 2016 ; Zubris and Richards, 2005 ). Equally important, microplastics derived from medical applications, pharmaceuticals, and personal care cosmetics have received a lot of attention due to the outbreak of new coronary pneumonia. During the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, the handling of microplastics generated by PPE is considered a new current environmental challenge ( de Sousa, 2020 ; Fadare and Okoffo, 2020 ). In particular, disposable masks used to slow down the spread of COVID-19 from person to person have become a key source of microplastic pollution due to improper disposal.

• (c) Circular economy

Generation and dispersion of microplastics in terrestrial environments.

Circular economy is an economic development model characterized by resource conservation and recycling, and in harmony with the environment. Its characteristic is that all materials and energy can be used reasonably and lastingly in this continuous economic cycle, thereby reducing the impact of economic activities on the natural environment to the smallest possible extent. The circular economy allows the used resources to be retained in the socio-economic system for a long time, and enables the waste in the disposal stage can be reused as a secondary raw material to ensure that natural resources are used as little as possible ( Korhonen et al., 2018 ; Li et al., 2021 ; Rossi et al., 2020 ). At present, studies have been conducted to highlight the need for circular economy strategies such as reduction and recycling for the COVID-19 epidemic to minimize waste generation throughout the product life cycle ( Kochańska et al., 2021 ; Parashar and Hait, 2020 ; Wang et al., 2022c ). Therefore, in order to solve the environmental problem of plastic pollution, many countries are adopting different strategic systems to effectively use plastic waste and promote the use of technology that plastic waste replaces recycled materials of limited resources ( Rajmohan et al., 2019 ). It aims to protect the environment from plastic pollution through the overall changes in the design, production, use and recycling of plastic products ( Shin et al., 2020 ). For example: recycling masks used during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Crespo et al., 2021 ; Dang et al., 2021 ; Jirawattanasomkul et al., 2021 ; Torres and De-la-Torre, 2021 ). Thus, the establishment of a resource efficiency policy based on the concept of circular economy is essential for effective plastic waste management.

• (d) Marine debris

A large amount of plastic waste generated globally enters the aquatic environment and has harmful effects on the aquatic system ( Uhrin et al., 2021 ). For example, plastic fragments deposit in sediments and entangle marine animals. This problem has become more serious during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many scholars have tried to find different waste management methods to curb the exacerbation of the problem ( Payne et al., 2019 ; Wang et al., 2021b ).

• (e) Biodegradation

Biodegradation has received a lot of attention from scholars before and during the pandemic. Plastic waste is the most difficult waste to solve because it is hard to biodegrade ( Payne et al., 2019 ). In addition, the waste plastics accumulated in the environment can be further degraded into small pieces such as microplastics and nanoplastics through weathering, which are more harmful to the environment and humans than large plastics. The increase in global demand for plastics during COVID-19 has led to serious plastic waste pollution. In order to alleviate this phenomenon, a variety of plastic degradation modes have been studied and tried, including physical, thermal and chemical degradation methods ( Mahadhevan, 2021 ). Microbial-based plastic waste degradation strategies offer a feasible method to mitigate the environmental pressure caused by the accumulation of plastic waste ( Qin et al., 2021 ; Sánchez, 2020 ).

5. Conclusion

This work systematically reviewed the publications related to plastic pollution in the WOS database before COVID-19 pandemic (2015–2019) and during COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). It aims to explore whether the COVID-19 epidemic has changed plastic pollution research. The main conclusions drawn in this article are as follows:

• (i) The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the trend of publication output for plastic pollution research. Since 2015, the total number and the daily average number of publications have both shown an increasing trend, especially after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The total number of publications in less than two years during the COVID-19 pandemic has been much higher than in the five years prior to the pandemic, indicating that the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted increasing attention to research on plastic pollution worldwide.
• (ii) The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the global research landscape on the plastic pollution research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of countries conducting plastic pollution research and the number of publications in a single country has increased pronouncedly compared to before the pandemic. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, developed countries played a leading role in plastic pollution related research and there was a certain gap between developing and developed countries in terms of both the number of publications and total citations. However, the quantity and quality of publications in developing countries such as China and India have been rapidly improved, and they have become an important part of the plastic pollution research during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, developing countries have obviously strengthened their cooperation with many developed countries.
• (iii) The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the main hotspots of plastic pollution research. By mining the keyword clustering results before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is observed that the research content has changed significantly since the pandemic. How to solve plastic pollution has become a major focus. In addition, microplastics have been intensively studied during the pandemic, and improper handling of PPE is considered to be a key source of microplastics pollution.

In summary, the COVID-19 epidemic has reshaped the plastic pollution research. The output of plastic pollution publications, the global research landscape, and research topics have all changed. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on plastic pollution is profound and dynamic. Also, the surge in plastic pollution caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has not been resolved, which has seriously affected the global environmental situation and environmental supervision. Accordingly, in order to build a green, environmentally sustainable world, it is necessary to continue to increase the research results related to COVID-19 and plastic pollution to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 epidemic. Furthermore, it is recommend that future research further investigate the changes in plastic pollution research during the COVID-19 pandemic and enrich the selected databases for more comprehensive research.

Author contribution statement

Qiang Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Writing- Original draft preparation, Supervision, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Min Zhang: Methodology, Software, Data curation, Investigation Writing- Original draft, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Rongrong Li: Methodology, Data curation, Investigation Writing- Original draft, Writing- Reviewing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the editor and these anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments that greatly contributed to improving the final version of the manuscript. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72104246, 71874203).

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7 Key Research Areas That Could Help Solve the Plastic Crisis

At the forefront of our technological advances are researchers that dedicate their career to investigating and studying the possibility of new innovations. Without research, our world would not experience progress and problems posed against humanity would go unanswered. As plastic pollution remains one of the world’s biggest environmental problems, targeted scientific research is key to finding solutions to the pervasive issue. Here are 7 key research areas that will help us progress further in solving the plastic crisis. 

Aside from technological advancements and inventions, targeted area research will bring imperative benefits in tackling the plastic crisis. Without it, scientists would not have uncovered the plastic-eating enzyme that will play an important role in drafting further future solutions, and we would not have discovered that our current NASA technology used to predict extreme weather can also be used to monitor and track microplastics in our oceans. 

Needless to say, research is fundamental to pioneering groundbreaking technology, as well as finding solutions to political issues and governance within our communities. The journal One Earth published an article asking leading researchers in the industry what they believe the best science-based research to the solution to the plastic crisis should be. This has been summed up in the following:

• Enforcing Political Change 

Tamara Golloway from the University of Exeter believes that unsustainable use of plastic is widely occurring around the world. To alleviate the plastic crisis, she asserts that we need research on how we tackle the plastic crisis on a political level.  This includes adopting “circular-economy approaches to focus on creating closed-loop resource flows that can keep products in use longer, thereby reducing waste and carbon budgets, and conserving natural resources.” Galloway implies that the current use and shelf-life of plastic is unsustainable, and we need to bring together governments and scientific researchers to find ways in which plastic can be used in a more sustainable way. 

Britta Denise Hardesty from Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation also believes that research should be conducted into political change in the form of a plastic tax that incorporates the true social cost of plastic. 

“When we put a price on plastic, when we value the many polymers that compose the plastics in society today, and when we incorporate the true costs into what we pay for these materials – from pellet form to finished product and from manufacturing to recovery – we will not only wasteless but also design better and smarter,” said Hardesty. 

• Plastic Governance 

Marcus Haward of University of Tasmania believes that more research should be carried out on the governance of plastic, focusing specifically on its production and use, as current regulations and government responses have failed to properly address plastic waste. 

“Plastic pollution is a case of regulatory, market, and community failure, and so traditional governance responses such as looking to market instruments to address regulatory failure or community actions to address market failures are insufficient,” stated Haward. 

• Plastic Pollution on Human and Ecosystem Health 

Sherri A Mason of Penn State Behrend believes that to ignite collective action, more research is needed studying the effects of plastic pollution on human health and what it is directly doing to our bodies. 

“The research questions at the forefront of plastic pollution research and those that are most likely to lead to real solutions are those that are looking at the impact of plastic pollution, specifically micro-and nanoplastics, on human health,” Mason said. “When people know it is affecting them and/or their children and other loved ones, they will demand action and our representatives will be hard pressed to rationalise anything but.”

Alice Horton of National Oceanography Centre agrees, adding that research should also look into its effects on ecosystems, food chains and human health. “Understanding the distribution and forms of plastics in the environment will help us to better understand ecosystem exposure and to predict accumulation and hazard,” Horton said. “Further investigating the harm that different types of plastics can cause will ultimately help us to target those that are the biggest threats, i.e., the ‘‘problem plastics,’’ and thus implement strategies to reduce the production of these products and their effect on the environment.”

You might also like: Solution for Plastic Pollution: 6 Policies and Innovations Tackling Plastics

• Plastic Consumption

Joshua O Babayemi of Anchor University in Lagos believes research should be carried out on the consumption of plastic and ways in which they can be modified to make them recyclable and sustainable for the economy. Babayemi notes that there is a huge issue of unrecyclable plastic bags dominating their economies in Africa. “Despite the global outcry against plastic littering and pollution, these ‘‘unrecyclable’’ plastics currently litter almost every street and make up a major component of wastes in all dumpsites,” Babayami stated. “It is not uncommon to see plastic bags caught on plants.”

Babayemi added: “This raises several research questions. Why are these categories of plastic wastes not usually sought after by recyclers in African countries? Can deposit return schemes be a way out? Is the continent ripe for a complete ban of single-use plastics? Can the composition of plastic bags be modified to be more suitable for recycling? Finding the answers will be a critical step in addressing plastic pollution in Africa.”

• Plastic Sources, Sinks and Transport Pathways 

Stefan Krause of the University of Birmingham believes we need further research into the sources, sinks and transport pathways of plastic. This would mean investigating how plastic is altered throughout its journey into the economy, and how these alterations are affecting aquatic life, human health and ecosystems. 

“There are still severe knowledge gaps in understanding the principles that govern the spatial and temporal dynamics of plastic transport and accumulation in river corridors,” stated Krause. “This includes how microplastic particles are altered during transport – how they degrade in freshwater environments, how they enter and propagate through food webs, and ultimately how they affect human and environmental health.”

• Bioplastic and Plastic Alternatives 

Joleah Lamb of the University of California Irvine argues we need to put our attention towards technological and innovative advancements of bioplastics. There’s currently a “social hesitation” in the use of plastic alternative materials, which warrants further research in this key area. Lamb stresses that social understanding is imperative. 

When discussing replacing plastic with bioplastic, she asserts that “transforming a waste stream into the main component of a new product might not be well received by consumers, resulting in low uptake despite the positive environmental impact.” 

“For example, when several leading car companies started using plant-based wiring, concerned consumers filed class-action lawsuits, and the products were withdrawn,” she added. 

• Tracking and Monitoring Plastic

Ivan A Hinojosa of Universidad Catolica de la Santısima Concepcion highlights the need to examine approaches in tracking plastics through the use of chemical markers that enable labelling and identification. He further believes that large companies need to be held responsible for their negligence. “The big producers of plastic pollution must be held responsible,” Hinojosa said. “The scientific community could potentially facilitate producer accountability by investigating approaches to tracking plastics through chemical markers that enable labelling and identification.” 

What’s Next? 

It is clear that targeted key research is just as imperative as the technology created by our inventors and engineers. To support the furtherance of such research discussed above, governments need to prioritise environmental issues in their agenda. For instance, The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report providing countries with a Green Budgeting Framework that can help governments achieve their environmental and climate goals. 

In redirecting their budget and ensuring that they are investing enough money to help fund the expansion and future of these types of research, we might have a change in tackling global pervasive problems including plastic pollution. 

About the Author

Jangira Lewis

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Articles on Plastic pollution

Displaying 1 - 20 of 135 articles.

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Judith Weis , Rutgers University - Newark

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Deborah Lau , CSIRO

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The climate impact of plastic pollution is negligible – the production of new plastics is the real problem

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Saija Saarni , University of Turku

New single-use plastic ban takes effect in England – here’s why its impact may be limited

Antaya March , University of Portsmouth ; Cressida Bowyer , University of Portsmouth , and Keiron Roberts , University of Portsmouth

Sea glass, a treasure formed from trash, is on the decline as single-use plastic takes over

Lori Weeden , UMass Lowell

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• Perspective
• Open access
• Published: 01 November 2023

Training the next generation of plastics pollution researchers: tools, skills and career perspectives in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field

• Denise M. Mitrano 1 ,
• Moritz Bigalke 2 ,
• Andy M. Booth 3 ,
• Camilla Catarci Carteny 4 ,
• Scott Coffin 5 ,
• Matthias Egger 6 , 7 ,
• Andreas Gondikas 8 ,
• Thorsten Hüffer 9 ,
• Albert A. Koelmans 10 ,
• Elma Lahive 11 ,
• Karin Mattsson 12 ,
• Stephanie Reynaud 13 &
• Stephan Wagner 14  

Microplastics and Nanoplastics volume  3 , Article number:  24 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Plastics pollution research attracts scientists from diverse disciplines. Many Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are drawn to this field to investigate and subsequently mitigate the negative impacts of plastics. Solving the multi-faceted plastic problem will always require breakthroughs across all levels of science disciplinarity, which supports interdisciplinary discoveries and underpins transdisciplinary solutions. In this context, ECRs have the opportunity to work across scientific discipline boundaries and connect with different stakeholders, including industry, policymakers and the public. To fully realize their potential, ECRs need to develop strong communication and project management skills to be able to effectively interface with academic peers and non-academic stakeholders. At the end of their formal education, many ECRs will choose to leave academia and pursue a career in private industry, government, research institutes or non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Here we give perspectives on how ECRs can develop the skills to tackle the challenges and opportunities of this transdisciplinary research field and how these skills can be transferred to different working sectors. We also explore how advisors can support an ECRs’ growth through inclusive leadership and coaching. We further consider the roles each party may play in developing ECRs into mature scientists by helping them build a strong foundation, while also critically assessing problems in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary context. We hope these concepts can be useful in fostering the development of the next generation of plastics pollution researchers so they can address this global challenge more effectively.

Graphical Abstract

Plastics pollution is a wicked problem that will require stakeholders from many different backgrounds to solve. In this perspective, we highlight how early career researchers (ECRs) can translate and appreciate their work in the context of interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary solutions, and considerations needed for successful career development and advancement in different sectors. We also comment on how advisors can support ECRs in developing their career and create working environments which are conducive to helping students acquire the mentality and skillsets for solving globalized problems.

Introduction

Plastics pollution, including nano- and microplastics, is anticipated to negatively impact environmental quality, human health and affect ecosystem services through interactions with biota and altering biogeochemical cycles. An increasing number of researchers have been studying the occurrence and effects of (nano- and micro)plastics pollution in various contexts [ 1 ]. Because of the complex nature of such a large and multi-faceted topic, plastics pollution research attracts scientists from diverse disciplines, ranging from polymer chemists to environmental scientists to human and ecotoxicologists to social scientists (to name a few). Like other wicked problems, plastic pollution defies simplistic solutions, is challenging to frame, involves conflicting values and interests [ 2 ], and is riddled with uncertainties [ 3 , 4 ]. This makes plastics pollution a societal, economic and environmental challenge which needs interdisciplinary research and transdisciplinary solutions since the successful management, prevention and mitigation measures need to integrate knowledge across various academic disciplines and non-academic stakeholders. Creating an environment for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research will facilitate finding solutions across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Fostering dialogues, mutual learning, and knowledge co-production across disciplines will accelerate and diversify research and ensure challenges along the entire plastics lifecycle are addressed. This integrative approach links scientific innovation with solutions to societal problems, while still acknowledging and accepting local contexts and uncertainty in knowledge [ 5 ]. Although interdisciplinarity is a key feature of transdisciplinary research, transdisciplinarity goes beyond interdisciplinarity by adding cooperation between science and society to the inner-scientific cooperation between different disciplines [ 6 , 7 ].

Academic research is often criticized as scientists working in silos. Traditionally, embarking on a PhD has meant focusing on developing knowledge and skills in a narrow field of research on a stand-alone topic. While this typically requires dialogue with other experts within a given field, ECRs can be isolated from other disciplines. This siloing makes communication across disciplines more challenging and may limit the scope of research questions individual researchers tackle. There is, therefore, a growing need for today's ECRs to have awareness of different scientific disciplines and engagement with a wide variety of stakeholders in the area of plastics pollution to both better contextualize their work and to deliver results that contribute to meaningfully minimizing the impacts of plastics throughout their entire life cycle. Indeed, many ECRs are increasingly interested in seeing their work being applied to policy, technological solutions, or informing citizens. As a scientific community, we need to cultivate collaborative research approaches, and one of the most important ways to do this is by providing ECRs with the opportunity to develop skill sets that allow them to do this effectively across a broad range of different career paths after their formal training ends.

There are both opportunities and challenges for ECRs, who must simultaneously grow their scientific expertise while also developing effective communication and project management skills at the start of their career. As for all scientists, ECRs working in plastics pollution research must build a strong foundation in the scientific method, which includes developing important hypotheses and objectives, designing laboratory experiments and field campaigns, technical skill sets to analyze samples and data, modeling, and interpreting and reporting these appropriately. Development of these tools is critical to the success of ECRs being able to answer key questions in the field and to help build the foundation of scientific knowledge about the plastics lifecycle and impacts. To communicate their results, ECRs must consider the broad audience(s) that are interested in their scientific results, including peers in plastics pollution research, other scientists in related fields, industry, policy makers and the public. To make their research applicable, ECRs should be able to contextualize their own research, envisage how it can be utilized beyond their own principal domain, and be able to critically evaluate plastics pollution related research from other disciplines [ 8 ]. Ultimately, understanding and respecting the positions of other (academic and non-academic) interest groups and appreciating that multiple points of view must be considered when tackling plastics pollution is a necessity. Regardless of whether an ECR pursues an academic career path or not, the holistic development of these aspects provides a more broadly applicable and transferable skill set that includes evaluation of complex information, assessing contradictory evidence and effective communication. With respect to inter- and transdisciplinary research in particular, further expertise spanning the traditional boundaries of research and administrative/managerial tasks are necessary, including cross-boundary communication, project leadership and management, research approaches, administration, and outreach to a variety of stakeholders [ 9 , 10 ]. More specifically, integral competencies include 1) translational skills between diverse groups of scientists and other stakeholders, 2) effective knowledge synthesis between disciplines, and 3) balancing intellectual leadership with administrative responsibilities between disciplines.

In June 2022, the authors of this perspective, all of whom are senior researchers and/or actors in the field of plastics pollution from various disciplines and career paths, organized a workshop aimed at stimulating broader thinking and communication skills for plastics pollution ECRs. The workshop format coupled scientific expertise in plastics pollution research and targeted skills development, collectively allowing ECRs to embrace the challenges and opportunities of working in this field. In this perspective, we aim to provide a framework for coaching and training ECRs working on complex societal problems, such as plastics pollution. Here plastics pollution is used as an exemplary case, but the concepts would also be applicable to ECRs in other inter- and transdisciplinary fields. We hope these concepts can foster the development of the next generation of plastics pollution researchers. Our goal is for this perspective to prove useful for both ECRs who are building their careers, as well as more established researchers who want to help ECRs achieve more holistic profiles to tackle multi-faceted global challenges. While we do not mean to imply that all ECRs will or should develop a profile which contains inter- and transdisciplinary aspects, we would like to stress that having an awareness of how ones’ work fits into a larger picture is advantageous. We explore how to best help ECRs grow into mature scientists by building a strong foundation while also critically assessing problems in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary context. Consequently, we hope this perspective can act as a catalyst for reflection on the diversity of approaches when developing ones’ skillsets and scientific approach, independent of whether an ECR chooses to work within or outside academia.

Challenges and opportunities as an ECR in the plastics research field

There is currently widespread acknowledgement of the challenges posed by plastics pollution, including strong public awareness and interest in addressing the problem, and consequently plastics pollution research has increased significantly in recent years. Many governments, regulatory bodies and research commissions have supported large, well-funded initiatives to address the issue, consequently providing ECRs with a diversity of academic backgrounds the opportunity to delve into plastics pollution research. The recognized need to address multiple drivers (e.g., environmental, economic, political, societal, etc.) has generated a unique opportunity for researchers to be part of a global effort to improve our understanding on this timely issue [ 3 ]. This is in line with a general increase in the proportion of transdisciplinary projects that aim to grasp the complexity of real-world problems and sustainability challenges [ 11 ]. Consequently, plastics pollution ECRs are far from being alone in gaining their scientific qualifications outside of disciplinary lines.

Solving the plastic problem will require breakthroughs at all levels of research disciplinarity. Some of these will be mono-, multi-, or interdisciplinary research and these can support interdisciplinary discoveries and underpin transdisciplinary solutions (Fig.  1 ) [ 12 ]. In contrast to the traditional model where ECRs focus on a narrowly defined topic in a given field, the breadth of information continually generated on this topic and the complexity of the problem requires researchers to be well-informed across a range of disciplines. Any researcher that embraces this complexity has the opportunity to build a strong and diverse scientific network to tackle concepts and projects that require input across traditional disciplinary lines [ 13 ]. Working in this way often requires more exploration of approaches and methodologies than disciplinary research, which can necessitate learning additional skillsets. A benefit for ECRs is that they can have several expert mentors to increase their technical skills. Although individual ECRs will not be experts in all fields associated with a complex study, they may be able to complement the skillsets and viewpoints of others to have an appreciation and integration of research from other disciplines. Consequently, they will have a broader, more holistic view of the plastics pollution issue and can translate this way of higher-level thinking in contextualizing their work.

Solving the plastic problem will always require breakthroughs on all levels of science disciplinarity. At each level, there are different degrees of interaction between individuals and an ECRs placement in the working environment. Examples of different research questions, approaches and expected outcomes from the plastics pollution field are provided for each case. Adapted from Morton et al. [ 12 ]

ECRs need opportunities to develop research planning and management skills, and Djinlev et. al have summarized 10 challenges specific to ECRs conducting inter- and transdisciplinary research [ 14 ]. Creating their project framework will often require collecting, sorting, and prioritizing ideas from different colleagues and sources to develop a cohesive plan [ 15 ], where they can face conflicting methodological standards and lack of integration across knowledge types. When in theory an ECRs’ project involves multiple experts from different domains and they can synthesize different types of information to draw more robust and overarching conclusions, in practice this necessitates an ECR to both build their scientific foundation and contextualize their findings simultaneously. Coordinating meetings, updates and dissemination activities across project partners also allows ECRs to develop project management skills, yet this often comes with a significant investment of time. Indeed, ECRs involved in inter- and transdisciplinary research often cite work overload as a significant downside. Consequently, coordinating different research lines within a project often takes more time than in disciplinary research, which can ultimately decrease the output of peer-reviewed journal articles—traditionally a key metric for academic success. ECRs, therefore, need to perform a balancing act to remain up to date with literature and development of research concepts in contributing disciplines, while at the same time staying focused on the objectives of their own research project. Efficiency with time management through making goals and targets on a realistic time schedule is paramount. Conversely, academia in some countries is moving towards “science for societal impact” rather than impact as measured by bibliometric statistics, benefiting said balance [ 16 , 17 , 18 ]. Nevertheless, deciding on where to spend time, effort, and focus is a delicate and often stressful decision-making process for ECRs, where some worry if the scientific rigor of transdisciplinary research projects is comparable to discipline-specific projects in the context of a PhD program [ 14 , 19 ].

Increasingly, plastics pollution research extends beyond the academic realm to provide scientific evidence to support policy decisions and inform the public [ 20 ]. Open discussion with these stakeholders is where transdisciplinarity starts in earnest (Fig.  2 ). ECRs can play a pivotal role in strengthening cooperation between the scientific community and civil society in particular, but they can also make connections between industry and policy stakeholders as well. This exciting opportunity for ECRs to communicate their work goes hand in hand with the responsibility of clearly acknowledging the limitations of their study to avoid overinterpretation of results [ 21 , 22 ]. ECRs can utilize established platforms to communicate with both peers and stakeholders through a variety of routes, ranging from peer-reviewed scientific publications to simplified public media outlets that is easier for non-scientists to comprehend. Open access publishing offers a system that facilitates sharing of scientific discourse to an audience beyond academia, e.g., journalists, policy makers, government, industry, and the public [ 23 ]. Aside from peer-reviewed manuscripts, the importance of sharing data openly will advance the state of the field [ 24 ]. Additionally, ECRs can directly communicate to an information-thirsty global community through social media, but facts need to be delivered in targeted and concise ways [ 4 , 25 ]. All scientists, including ECRs, should consider the scientific level of their target audience when using social media to avoid claims that may be exaggerated and misinterpreted [ 25 ]. Developing the skills early in ones career to communicate effectively to different audiences can significantly boost an ECRs’ job perspectives.

In transdisciplinary research, each stakeholder will have different expertise, value prioritization and expected or ideal outcomes. For ECRs working in the field of plastics pollution research, understanding these different viewpoints and learning how to effectively communicate with academic and non-academic stakeholders will both help them contextualize their current research project and work in a more efficient and collaborative manner. Colored boxes show examples of tasks and challenges in the respective sector

Developing skills and expertise for transdisciplinary research

The concepts of transdisciplinary research will not replace disciplinary research topics, but there are many complementary aspects. In the context of plastics pollution research, for example, we still need efforts which focus on assessing hazards of different materials. However, this disciplinary research will only reach its full impact when it is combined with an exposure assessment and further integrated into risk assessment, especially for more environmentally relevant scenarios. Eventually, environmental regulations could be passed based on the collective results across all these aspects. Experimental planning, communication and application of results must be coordinated to reach more impactful conclusions. For this, common vocabularies are needed to overcome barriers (e.g., dialects, nomenclature, data classification, etc.) that occur across and even within disciplines [ 26 ]. Addressing the complex questions about plastics pollution increasingly requires the ability to work and communicate across disciplines and sectors in order to gain a perspective that encompasses the multi-level and multi-faceted conditions involved with this issue [ 24 , 27 , 28 , 29 ].

Often ECRs focus heavily on discipline-specific technical skills during their training, which can lay the foundation for their work. In our opinion, importance should also be placed on developing skills to synthesize and contextualize results in a broader context. Effective communication, both written and oral, is key when working in inter- and transdisciplinary research since ECRs will need to discuss with researchers and stakeholders from different backgrounds and offer access to knowledge that is not traditionally part of ones’ main discipline (Fig.  1 ). In this field of research, ECRs also have the opportunity to work beyond the academic setting and begin to integrate the perspectives, values, and interests of societal actors involved across the entire plastics value chain including industry, consumers, and government stakeholders. Here, the guiding question for developing skills and expertise for transdisciplinary research is: How can we learn to work in systemic ways with multiple approaches to create transformative change to avoid plastics pollution, mitigate negative impacts, and move towards sustainability? Most importantly, a good advisor for ECRs remains open minded to new ideas and has a track record in successfully guiding ECRs in completing their projects and advancing their careers. Additional attributes may include having a strong publication record themself and being active in the chosen research field, as this will allow ECRs to more easily develop their network and stay current and timely in their research objectives.

Our microplastic workshop accounted for these aspects in its agenda by aiming to train ECRs by increasing awareness of being open minded and the importance of these transferable skills in developing ones’ career. For several reasons, many scientists tend to feel that they need to know everything and revealing lack of knowledge (even if outside ones’ own research scope) is often seen as a weakness. Consequently, many ECRs may be less inclined to include concepts from other research disciplines or stakeholder viewpoints into their own work for fear of appearing less capable. We highlighted that learning how to ask for (as well as provide) clarifications from peers in other fields of research and stakeholders with different backgrounds is key to creating effective communication and reaching common goals. Creating simple, well-organized, and targeted take home messages allows others to understand and use the results of one’s work in practice. These approaches will eventually lead to increased understanding across the entire plastics pollution research community and create bridges for research which takes into account multiple viewpoints.

Career opportunities for ECRs in the field of plastics pollution research: within and outside the academic environment

ECRs are at a stage when they must decide the future direction of their careers, and they often initially consider a career in academia as the “default” option and the best way to stay involved in cutting edge research science. Remaining in an academic setting comes with a comfortable familiarity for many, since the working environment and structures are already known, and because ECRs advisors and mentors can often more easily guide them in this direction. Nevertheless, many ECRs are fully aware of career insecurity in both the short- and long-terms and the competitive culture of “publish or perish” which can create adverse incentives within the academic research environment [ 30 , 31 ]. Knowledge about the demands, and the pros and cons, of an academic career compared to other career possibilities is a clear asset for informed decision making. Here we highlight career opportunities both within and outside academia and briefly discuss their benefits and challenges. Note that the authors primarily have experience working within Europe and the US, and thus the options presented here mainly reflect these regions, although they may be applicable elsewhere. Before leaving academia, it is important to consider the potential difficulty of re-entry. Personal research interests can generally still be pursued in other sectors if they are within the general scope of the organization. However, key parameters that can limit a return to academia after working in other sectors are the opportunities to publish in peer-reviewed journals or demonstrate a track record of funding acquisition. It is also important to note that ECRs do not necessarily need to work directly in the same discipline as their graduate research. The authors of this perspective represent plastics pollution researchers employed across a range of different sectors (academia, government, private sector, research institute, NGO), allowing them to provide specific insight into the different career paths available to ECRs working within this research field.

Beyond the considerations listed above, many of which an ECR may already be aware of through their own experience and discussions with peers and advisors, it is important for ECRs to recognize that positions within academia can also vary greatly. This can include, for example, different legal framework conditions for scientists in different countries, universities which are more teaching focused versus research focused, different department structures, and the different institutional demands that vary from university to university. While in some academic departments, discipline-specific expertise (and to some extent research) is sometimes favored because of the teaching demands associated with a given professorship position [ 32 ], there is also increasing appreciation of inter- and transdisciplinary research within academic settings. That being said, transdisciplinary chairs and professorships are still rare, and a transdisciplinary track record is usually not sufficient when applying for disciplinary full professorships (which also holds true for interdisciplinary academic career paths) [ 19 ]. Facing these types of structural challenges may be even more daunting for those ECRs who want to incorporate inter- or transdisciplinary research into their portfolios, where they need to still be seen as subject matter experts and develop their academic identity [ 33 ]. While there have been calls to further establish permanent roles of those who can facilitate inter- and transdisciplinary research [ 34 ], including the development of course structures to include these concepts [ 35 ], in the short-term such institutional challenges can be an obstacle for some. Despite this, there are an increasing number of funding mechanisms which specifically support or request inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches, where the direct involvement of industry partners and other stakeholders is integral for securing the grant and for the subsequent success of the project. In recent years, there have also been initiatives developed to support transdisciplinary research, such as the tdAcademy network and the td-net , as well as those specifically targeted towards ECRs [ 14 ], such as the International Transdisciplinary Alliance .

A significant benefit of working in government is a predictable, stable, structured lifestyle. Many government positions often follow standard 40-h working weeks, allowing for healthy work-life balance and family-centric lifestyles that may be challenging to maintain in other sectors. Such positions typically include good benefits and pension packages, and provide unique opportunities to apply science to policy, thus more directly affecting societal change. Furthermore, scientific employees in government enjoy freedom from a number of time-consuming, potentially stressful tasks prevalent in other sectors, such as grant applications, client relations, increasing company profits, or teaching classes. In contrast, the highly structured nature of government work results in slower progress and actions hampered by complicated bureaucracies. In general, the focus of government agencies on applied science means many positions do not involve research and may comprise more repetitive work with fewer opportunities for individual creativity. However, working in a government position may allow the ECRs in the field of plastics pollution to contribute and participate in decision making processes for substantial societal changes in the field of circular economy, environmental policy and regulation, and beyond. Nonetheless, positions in the government often provide unique and valuable perspectives that can lead to numerous and exciting opportunities in further career development if one wishes to change sectors later in their career (e.g., consulting and industry sectors often value applicants with prior government experience). To this end, government employees often have opportunities to build networks with diverse stakeholders across sectors, providing high mobility for career changes.

Private sector (industry, consultancy)

Many ECRs may not be aware of the extent of options available in the private sector (industry, trade associations, and consultancy firms), which can provide a powerful drive for change in the ongoing challenge to reach sustainability and circularity within socioeconomic systems. However, the transdisciplinarity of environmental plastics researchers is a key asset for such a transition. A scientist’s role within this sector can span from research and innovation (e.g., innovative materials, circular production processes, product safety) to strategy and solutions (e.g., policy analysis and drafting, life cycle assessment, product stewardship). An advantage of the private sector can be faster career advancement compared to academia, which has a positive effect on salary, responsibility and experience. When working within the private sector, publications do not represent an essential performance metric, relieving the constant pressure many academics experience [ 36 ]. This is connected to personal impact, where academics are typically recognised based on individual contributions and private sector researchers are seen as members of a wider organisation. As such, the private sector has much less focus on individuals achieving results and less pressure to constantly establish new investigation lines and research areas. Tight timelines and prioritisation are driven by product or business goals, which typically sees private sector researchers working in teams, integrating science and business-focused problem solving.

Research institutes

Research institutes, whether public or private, can cover either applied or fundamental research, often providing employees an opportunity to work on a diverse range of research topics and societal challenges. Applied research should lead to the development of new knowledge, technologies and commercialization, often in close collaboration with industry partners. Research institutes are often viewed as knowledge centers, providing expert advice that informs public debate and policymaking. Scientific publishing is also important within this sector and provides a crucial platform for marketing competence. Researchers at these organizations are encouraged to follow personal interests as long as funding can be secured and it falls within the research institutes strategic scientific goals. Collaboration across the often-diverse departments and groups is encouraged, allowing researchers to participate in highly transdisciplinary projects. Indeed, research institutes can sometimes have more capacity to be responsive in redirecting resources from different expertise towards addressing urgent knowledge gaps or problems highlighted by for example, policy makers or industry. Strong links to both universities and industry provide opportunities to collaborate across sectors. A major challenge in this sector is the need to secure external funding, which can limit research freedom, place financial constraints on the scope of research, and create a barrier to exploiting new ideas quickly. There are many examples of research institutes with different mission statements, directives and funding structures, and some may have similar attributes to an academic position (e.g., advising ECRs, applying for funding, and a focus on publishing results). Conversely, others may focus more on writing white papers and disseminating information, often to the public, where production of primary research is less in focus. While it is challenging to make overarching statements with relevance to all cases and individuals, ECRs may be able to find a plethora of different roles when looking for employment opportunities within this sector.

Non-profit and NGOs

Scientists in the non-profit and NGO sector often work at the intersection between academia, government, research institutes and the private sector, often focusing on conducting research and communicating the results to a wide(r) audience, including other scientists, industry, the public and policy makers. Talking to diverse stakeholders requires a good understanding of the broader implications of one’s research and being able to explain complex problems to non-experts. While scientists in this sector still publish peer-reviewed articles, the publication rate is likely lower than in the academic sector. Working together with non-scientists in the same organization provides opportunities to learn about other fields and skills often neglected in academia, including business development, accounting, legal, public relations and media. The sometimes-limited freedom of pursuing one’s individual research interest and the relatively lower wages compared to other sectors [ 37 ] are often considered the main downsides. Research teams can be relatively small and access to laboratory equipment limited, requiring scientists to establish collaborations with research institutes and universities. Networking through participating in international workshops and conferences is therefore typically considered essential.

Helping ECRs navigate their future

Advisors of ECRs play a critical role in fostering their development in both direct and indirect ways [ 38 , 39 ]. This is the case regardless of the type of research the ECR is involved in, i.e., independent of if the project is disciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary. Forward-thinking ECRs are often eager to develop transferable skills, explore career options and discuss important life decisions, but sometimes lack sufficient mentorship either because their advisor is less experienced or because they place more weight on scientific output due to personal expectations and heavy workloads. However, advisors should dedicate time to discuss personal development and employment options with ECRs, both in individual and research group settings, as well as be open to discussing non-academically focused career choices. The ECR should also play an active role in developing their research profile, improving their communication skills and building their professional network. Young researchers are often adept at finding ways to strengthen research-related competencies, but they should also actively seek out opportunities to improve soft skills and project management capabilities and take career readiness courses (e.g., CV and cover letter writing courses, public speaking courses, etc.) to prepare themselves for their next role. Ideally, advisors should be open to the ECR spending time on these “non-academic” activities to proactively support the ECRs holistic development for future success. There are some universally applicable approaches to help ECRs navigate their future, despite the fact that each ECRs situation is unique to the individual characteristics and personality traits of the advisor and ECR, as well as the research group culture and context as a whole. Some foundational strategies of a productive working relationship from the viewpoint of both the advisor and ECR in the academic context are outlined below and in Fig.  3 .

Career development of an ECR takes a team effort between the young scientist and the academic advisor. There are several key pieces to the puzzle of how to build a successful working relationship, no matter in which sector the ECR chooses to work in in the future

There is an unfortunate line of thinking prevalent in research settings that successful scientists are not good people managers. While it is true that until recently there has not been much dedicated training within the academic environment on effective leadership strategies, universities have begun to allocate more resources in training faculty to not only excel in research but also to better manage their teams [ 40 , 41 ]. Inclusive leadership can positively impact team working dynamics by creating an environment where all employees feel respected, valued and able to contribute their best [ 42 ]. These leadership traits include such mindsets as self-awareness, curiosity, courage, vulnerability and empathy. By adopting inclusive leadership, which translates well in the context of inter- and transdisciplinary science where one has to be open to new ideas outside ones’ domain, faculty can create a shared vision within their team to manage and lead a heterogenous group of people, while respecting their individuality and promoting personal growth. Modern academic systems put significant pressure on faculty to simultaneously produce world-class research, teach, acquire external funding, provide services to the research field (e.g., editorial and reviewing duties) and administrative tasks, resulting in a very demanding workload. Consequently, individual and personalized development of ECRs may suffer due to lack of time and/or additional responsibilities may be placed on ECRs to alleviate pressure from the advisor. Nevertheless, it is important that a good ECR mentor is motivated to allocate time to supervision and has a genuine interest in the projects and careers of the ECRs. The additional responsibilities taken on by the ECRs should also be officially acknowledged and recognized, so that ECRs do not remain in the shadow of their academic advisor.

Advisors can also take more concrete measures to support the ECRs working with them, especially in the context of fostering research and independence, developing project management skills and introductions into professional networks. Over time, ECRs will develop their own ideas but designing research plans takes patience and practice. ECRs should be coached to develop their own subprojects, which could include supervision of younger researchers (e.g., Masters students, guest researchers) and/or writing their first grant applications, as appropriate for their setting. While larger grant applications are often not applicable for ECRs because of limited employment contracts, there are many funding opportunities specifically targeted for ECR career development and mobility through national- and international funding programs (e.g., Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Fulbright, and Humboldt research fellowships) or directly at the intended host university. Such applications allow an ECR to learn how to write a compelling research narrative, plan project timelines and budgets and develop independence, even if ultimately the grant is not funded. An easy way to help ECRs further develop their professional network is by involving them in meetings with stakeholders in projects, administration, and media outlets, which helps them foster contacts and experience. They can also be supportive of the ECR visiting workshops and conferences with a mixed audience (i.e., not only academically focused) to help broaden the ECRs’ field of view for them to assess future employment opportunities. Creating an environment that allows an ECR to develop their own ideas of their future career, developing competences and networks and offering freedom for their own ideas and projects will improve their chances of success.

ECRs ultimately must take planning their futures into their own hands, which requires a significant amount of self-motivation, self-efficacy and resilience. For more senior ECRs, gaining autonomy is key in order to develop one’s own research profile and expertise in order to be viewed as an independent expert – especially when remaining in academia. In essence, the ECR needs to create visibility for themselves and their work by 1) differentiating their research from the core expertise of their advisor, 2) building a network for future collaborations and job prospects and 3) having a broader understanding of the field to participate in transdisciplinary research activities or be competitive in a non-academic setting. For their future career, ECRs require not only expert knowledge and skills, but also general competencies in time- and project management and communication skills to different audiences and stakeholders. The theoretical base of these competences can often be learned in graduate schools, summer schools and voluntary courses in most academic institutions, but should also be applied and developed in practice. To do so, peer-to-peer exchange and training and being involved in broader project contexts, where ECRs have the possibility to communicate with a variety of different stakeholders should be stimulated. The active investment in building up one’s own network, getting involved in the networks of the academic advisor or other group members is key to a career in academia but also in other sectors. To build one’s own network, ECRs should attend conferences and workshops as an active participant: physical presence alone often does not lead to relationship building opportunities. Being involved in different projects with many participants and investing time to socialize with colleagues and stakeholders will build trust in their network. This network will help one know about new calls for research projects, invitations to take part in projects, provide support with expertise one does not have, or advertise ECRs skills to colleagues and future employers. Taking part in broader academic discussions (e.g., ethics, responsibilities of science), public discussions (e.g., global change, circular economy) and outreach activities will help an ECR to communicate, to critically place their work in a broader context and to judge the significance of their work as well as to develop new ideas about science. ECRs who are looking for their next post in academia should look for an environment of academic freedom where the advisor allows the ECR to develop competences, pursue their own ideas and projects, and build networks: all of which will improve their chances of pursing a successful career path of their choosing.

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Abbreviations

Early Career Researcher

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Acknowledgements

The idea for this perspective was conceived during discussions among the group of organizers and expert contributors of the Microplastics Workshop for Early Career Researchers: Best practices and expert insights held in Athens, Greece 12 -17 June, 2022. We would like to thank the approximately 80 early career researchers for their openness and participation in this event. To gain further insights from an ECR perspective, the authors would like to thank the members of Denise Mitrano’s Environmental Chemistry of Anthropogenic Materials research group for proofreading and providing suggestions to the text to make it more relevant and applicable for their peers.

Open access funding provided by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich This article is based upon work from COST Action CA20101 Plastics monitoRIng detectiOn RemedIaTion recovery—PRIORITY, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology, www.cost.eu , accessed on 22 April 2022), “Memorandum of Understanding” for the implementation of the COST Action “Plastics monitoRIng detectiOn RemedIaTion recoverY” (PRIORITY) CA20101. DMM was funded through the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number PCEFP2_186856). AMB was funded through the Research Council of Norway (grant numbers 301157, 295174, 312262) and the EU Horizon Europe Framework Programme (grant numbers 101060213, 101022370). EL was funded through the EU Horizon 2020 Programme (grant number 862444).

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Moritz Bigalke

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D.M.M conceived the concept, wrote the main manuscript text and prepared the figures. M.B, A.M.B, C.C.C, S.C., M.E., A.G., T.H., A.A.K., E.L., K.M., S.R., and S.W. contributed to and edited the text. T.H. and S.W. contributed to and edited Fig. 1 . All authors reviewed and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Mitrano, D.M., Bigalke, M., Booth, A.M. et al. Training the next generation of plastics pollution researchers: tools, skills and career perspectives in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field. Micropl.&Nanopl. 3 , 24 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s43591-023-00072-4

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To better understand the nature of plastic debris in the Ocean, ORP has conducted multiple research expeditions in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans. ORP completed its first marine debris research expedition in 2013. During this trip, its crew spent 70 days sailing in the Atlantic Ocean, collecting samples of plastic trash in the water and mapping out the eastern side of the North Atlantic garbage patch. The following year, ORP embarked upon a second expedition to research microplastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean. During this trip, ORP’s crew sailed 6,800 miles nonstop from San Francisco to Yokohama, Japan, collecting microplastic samples along the trans-pacific route.

Due to the flexibility offered by doing research from a sailboat, ORP’s expeditions could dedicate more time to collecting data samples across a much broader area than other similar types of marine research expeditions would typically cover. ORP’s research has provided an essential baseline for marine surface debris data and improved knowledge of the concentration, composition, and extent of plastic debris in the Ocean. ORP conducted its research to ensure the samples could be used to support further research being done as part of plastic pellet toxicity studies at the University of Tokyo’s Pelletwatch program. In addition, ORP’s research was designed to allow ORP and participating scientists to define further the diversity of the Plastisphere, specifically the roles played by bacteria and viruses in their evolving relationships with plastic debris in the Ocean.

ORP’s research expeditions targeting the investigation of northern hemisphere subtropical gyres of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and well as the western Arctic’s plastic pollution in the marine environment have helped increase the scientific community’s understanding of plastic’s pollution’s pervasive distribution across oceans from the sea ice to the seabed. The extensive datasets and that ORP collected, processed and regional interpretation during these expeditions contributed to the following publications:

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Similar to natural elements like iron and copper, people can ingest, absorb or even inhale microplastics and nanoplastics and their chemical additives. A landmark study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine links microplastics and nanoplastics found in plaques of human blood vessels to a potential increased risk of heart attack, stroke or death.

Building on previous discoveries and these recent findings, the exposome research of Konstantinos Lazaridis, M.D ., and his team at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine , is at the forefront of exploring how external exposures — such as microplastics and nanoplastics, chemicals and pollution — influence health.

Exposome research investigates the cumulative environmental exposures throughout a person's life and how those exposures interact with genetic factors to affect biology and health.

"We plan to investigate the systemic effects of microplastics and nanoplastics and their chemical additives, not just on liver health, but overall human health," says Dr. Lazaridis, the Carlson and Nelson Endowed Executive Director for Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine.

Dr. Lazaridis has dedicated his career to investigating the genetic and environmental underpinnings of rare liver diseases, such as primary sclerosing cholangitis and primary biliary cholangitis .

Tucked beneath the protective right rib cage, the human liver is a vital organ, often referred to as the "body's powerhouse" due to its pivotal role in digestion and blood detoxification. While genetics play a role in its overall function, emerging research reveals environmental exposures also have a significant influence over liver health.

Do microplastics affect liver health?

Dr. Lazaridis seeks to draw parallels from existing medical knowledge on exposures of essential metals like iron and copper and their effect on liver function and disease. In the field of hepatology, it is well known that iron and copper, obtained mainly from dietary sources, play pivotal roles in critical processes such as oxygen transport and red blood cell production.

Excessive accumulation of these otherwise innocuous metals, because of genetic defects, can lead to liver damage and disease.

Microplastics and nanoplastics are miniscule fragments resulting from the breakdown of larger plastic items. They are often laced with chemical additives to enhance their flexibility and durability. Microplastics and nanoplastics have been found to infiltrate every corner of the globe. Their small size allows them to be ingested, absorbed, or inhaled, raising potential health risks.

Dr. Lazaridis emphasizes these findings raise concerns about the long-term effect of microplastics and nanoplastics, particularly for young people.

He says the urgency of the research is underscored by the current rate of plastic production , which stands at an estimated 400 million tons per year — a number projected to double by the year 2050.

"Plastics have made our lives more convenient and spurred many medical advances, but we must understand their impact on human health for the years to come," Dr. Lazaridis says.

Ultimately, he hopes to advance the understanding of long-term implications of microplastic and nanoplastic exposures, and to chart a course for individualized therapeutic interventions in a comparable way clinicians have for iron and copper accumulations in susceptible people.

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Editorial article, editorial: emerging challenges and solutions for plastic pollution.

• 1 Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University Marine Laboratory, Duke University, Beaufort, NC, United States
• 2 Integrated Toxicology and Environmental Health, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
• 3 Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, & Sustainability, Duke University, Durham, NC, United States
• 4 Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
• 5 Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

Editorial on the Research Topic Emerging challenges and solutions for plastic pollution

1 Introduction

Without a change in policy and management, plastic waste is modeled to triple by 2060 compared to 2019 ( OECD, 2022 ). Even with far-reaching actions, 710 million metric tons of plastic waste will enter environments between 2016-2040 ( Lau et al., 2020 ). In this special issue, “Emerging Challenges and Solutions for Plastic Pollution,” we invited articles exploring plastic pollution issues and hypothesizing solutions. The topic was broad to include diverse approaches as contributions from all stakeholders are needed to provide a full perspective on the plastic waste problem ( Jambeck et al., 2015 ; Borrelle et al., 2020 ; Lau et al., 2020 ). The special issue is a transdisciplinary collection of articles from academia, nongovernmental organizations, and industry: ( Diana et al. , Fürst and Feng , Grabiel et al. , Koongolla et al. , Lauer and Nowlin , Morrison et al. , Murphy et al. , Stolte et al., 2022 ; and Alnahdi et al., Karasik et al., 2023 ).

2 Harm posed by plastic pollution to marine animals

Plastic pollution can harm marine animals through entanglement, ingestion, and additive leaching. For example, ninety-four percent of fish (n = 271) from the Beibu Gulf, South China Sea, had microplastics (< 5 mm) in the gill and gut ( Koongolla et al., 2022 ). Microplastics may be consumed unintentionally as prey or intentionally via active feeding ( Savoca et al., 2016 ; Allen et al., 2017 ; Savoca et al., 2017 ), exposing animals to plastic additives ( Turner, 2018 ; Diana et al., 2020 ). Plastic exposure can induce the production of reactive oxygen species and result in gastrointestinal obstruction, translocation, and trophic transfer among marine animals ( Morrison et al., 2022 ; Yip et al., 2022a ). Plastic leachates can be acutely toxic to aquatic animals ( e.g. , barnacle larvae, Ceriodaphnia dubia ) ( Li et al., 2016 ; Thaysen et al., 2018 ).

3 Does plastic pollution harm human health?

Human plastic exposure is ubiquitous; however, health effects are poorly understood. Laboratory and occupational epidemiology studies link plastic exposure to respiratory irritation, cardiovascular disease, gut disturbance, inflammation, oxidative stress, and cancer ( Morrison et al., 2022 ; World Health Organization (WHO), 2022 ). Human cells exposed to nanoplastics showed significant toxicity ( Yong et al., 2020 ; Danopoulos et al., 2021 ; Mahadevan and Valiyaveettil, 2021 ). However, microplastics are diverse in their polymer type, shape, source, and chemical composition ( Rochman et al., 2019 ), so laboratory studies greatly simplify real-world exposures, often by testing only one polymer type ( World Health Organization (WHO), 2022 ). Plastics are associated with over 10,000 compounds, at least 2,400 of which have known toxicity issues ( Hahladakis et al., 2018 ; Groh et al., 2019 ; Wiesinger et al., 2021 ). Though endocrine-disrupting Bisphenol-A and phthalates are frequently studied ( Morrison et al., 2022 ), the health impacts of other plastic additives/mixtures are not well understood.

Plastics inequitably impact marginalized, low-income communities worldwide ( Karasik et al., 2023 ; UNEP, 2021a ). Plastic creates economic benefits and human health burdens across all lifecycle stages ( Karasik et al., 2023 ). Benefits and burdens are intertwined: petrochemical industries provide convenient lifestyle support, economic benefits, and air and environmental pollution ( Karasik et al., 2023 ). Diana et al. (2022) support Persson et al. (2022) ’s assessment that plastics have crossed planetary boundaries; thus, society is beyond the “safe operating space” in which human activities can occur ( Steffen et al., 2015 ; Persson et al., 2022 ).

4 Solutions

To address the harms to human and environmental health posed by plastic pollution ( e.g. , Yong et al., 2020 ; Yip et al., 2022b ), it is necessary to involve all stakeholders and utilize a variety of approaches ( Worm et al., 2017 ; Lau et al., 2020 ), including policy-focused ( Fürst and Feng, 2022 ; Grabiel et al., 2022 ; Lauer and Nowlin, 2022 ), technological ( Morrison et al., 2022 ; Stolte et al., 2022 ; Alnahdi et al., 2023 ), industry-focused ( Diana et al., 2022 ), and theoretical ( Diana et al., 2022 ; Morrison et al., 2022 ; Murphy et al., 2022 ) responses ( Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 Proposed solutions to address plastic pollution.

Strong theoretical underpinnings support effective solutions to plastic pollution. A seascape ecology (SE) theoretical framework is recommended for examining spatially-explicit plastic pollution questions ( Murphy et al., 2022 ). SE is transdisciplinary, multi-scale, and incorporates “governance systems, human actors, and ecological components … that contribute to patterns of plastic production, use, and pollution…” (quoted in Murphy et al., 2022 ). Diana et al. (2022) applied the four pathways to global sustainability, created by Folke et al. (2021) , to plastic pollution interventions.

Governments worldwide have adopted policies to reduce plastic pollution ( Xanthos and Walker, 2017 ; Schnurr et al., 2018 ; Karasik et al., 2020 ; Diana et al., 2022b ). The United Nations Environment Assembly is drafting a legally-binding global treaty to reduce plastic pollution by 2024 ( Simon et al., 2021 ). Researchers suggest using the Montreal Protocol as a model for the treaty, which includes fact-finding ( i.e. , plastic production reporting, licensing, setting baselines) and policymaking stages ( i.e. , phased decreases, production caps, independent assessments, exemptions for essential plastics) ( Grabiel et al., 2022 ).

Consistent with global trends ( Xanthos and Walker, 2017 ; Schnurr et al., 2018 ; Karasik et al., 2020 ; Diana et al., 2022b ), Chinese governments adopted and implemented plastic pollution policies from January 2000 and June 2021, increasing 925% ( Fürst and Feng, 2022 ). Policies frequently employed regulatory ( e.g. , bans, limits) and information instruments ( e.g ., education and outreach, campaigns) to target plastic waste and bags, but not plastic production ( Fürst and Feng, 2022 ).

All stakeholders have an important role in reducing marine debris, as pollution generated inland can be transported to the ocean via rivers or the wind ( Meijer et al., 2021 ; Napper et al., 2021 ; Youngblood et al., 2022 ). City governments, managers, and community groups may 1) collect data on dominant plastic litter or waste to understand the magnitude of the problem, 2) develop policies that reduce plastic consumption and waste, and 3) utilize controls ( e.g. , stormwater covers, riverine booms) to capture and prevent pollution ( Lauer and Nowlin, 2022 ). To be equitable, plastic bag fees should exempt low-income residents and distribute free reusable items ( e.g. , cotton reusable bags, takeout containers) ( Lauer and Nowlin, 2022 ).

Cleanup/bioremediation technologies and developing circularity concepts ( Sheth et al., 2019 ; Schmaltz et al., 2020 ; Alnahdi et al., 2023 ) complement policies to reduce plastic pollution ( Morrison et al., 2022 ; Stolte et al., 2022 );. Compared to previous methods, the sonar approach led by Stolte et al. (2022) has greater success in removing lost fishing gear and is less destructive to seafloor ecosystems. Alnahdi et al. (2023) suggest developing a marine-microbial ecosystem to degrade microplastics, nanoplastics, and additives. Such plastic clean-up and bioremediation efforts may be incentivized; however, efforts to reduce plastic upstream need to be prioritized, such as eliminating unnecessary plastics production ( UNEP, 2021b ; Bergmann et al., 2022 ) and incentivizing reusable alternatives ( Amon et al., 2022 ; Moss et al., 2022 ; Diana et al., 2022a ). For those plastics that are necessary, further efforts should be made to produce fully recyclable plastics, have half-lives similar to the usage period, and incorporate biologically-compatible additives ( Diana et al., 2022 ).

5 Conclusions

This special issue focused on articles related to plastic pollution issues and proposed potential solutions. Further research is needed to characterize human co-exposure to plastic chemical mixtures over time ( Morrison et al., 2022 ) and develop sustainable plastic chemistry ( Diana et al., 2022 ). Despite unknowns, researchers recommend applying the precautionary principle by regulating plastics ( Karasik et al., 2023 ). Diverse stakeholder inputs are needed to reduce plastic pollution and reverse deleterious environmental and human health effects.

Author contributions

ZD provided the first draft of the manuscript. All authors reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute Of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number T32ES021432 (Duke University Program in Environmental Health) and National Research Foundation of Singapore (NRF-NERCSEAP-2020-04 (WBS No. A-0004151-00-00). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Acknowledgments

We thank all of the authors who published articles in this Research Topic. We also thank the Duke University Plastic Pollution Working Group. ZD and DR would also like to acknowledge the Oak Foundation. Even though all papers are reviewed by multiple experts in the field, the authors of the papers are responsible for the accuracy of the contents included in this Research Topic.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: plastic, plastic pollution, policy, technology, solutions, marine, health

Citation: Diana ZT, Virdin J, Valiyaveettil S, Li H-X and Rittschof D (2023) Editorial: Emerging challenges and solutions for plastic pollution. Front. Mar. Sci. 10:1162680. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2023.1162680

Received: 09 February 2023; Accepted: 02 May 2023; Published: 10 May 2023.

Edited and Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2023 Diana, Virdin, Valiyaveettil, Li and Rittschof. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Daniel Rittschof, [email protected]

This article is part of the Research Topic

Emerging Challenges and Solutions for Plastic Pollution

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March 27, 2024

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Plastic 'interceptor' tackles trash in Bangkok river

Black flies exploded into the air as plastic waste fell from bamboo conveyor belts into skips on a solar-powered barge attempting to remove rubbish from the main river of Thailand's capital Bangkok.

The Ocean Cleanup project launched on the Chao Phraya river, its so-called "interceptor"—a boat-like structure trailing a floating barrier—using the river current to funnel plastic into the barge's waiting jaws.

The global non-profit, founded in 2013 by then-teenager Boyan Slat, aims to remove plastic pollution from the seas in part by preventing synthetic waste from ever reaching the oceans.

"The Chao Prayo is actually the largest, the single largest source, of plastic pollution for the Gulf of Thailand," Slat told AFP.

"The Gulf of Thailand is, of course, very important ecologically, but also economically for tourism and fisheries," he said.

"It's very important to us to tackle this plastic pollution here."

The Bangkok project, which has taken roughly two years to launch, is a research collaboration with businesses and local officials and Ocean Cleanup's fifth "interceptor" project researching pollution prevention in Southeast Asia.

Working with Chulalongkorn University, Ocean Cleanup mapped the Chao Phraya's currents to determine the best location for the interceptor—a difficult task given the river's 500-meter (1,640-foot) width and its busy traffic lanes.

Positioned at the point where around 60 canals join the main river, ticking bamboo-slatted treadmills carry the collected waste into the barge, where it is deposited into bright blue skips and taken ashore to be disposed of by local authorities .

Penchom Saetang, from the environmental group EARTH Thailand, told AFP that while removing plastic from the river was important, getting chemical pollutants out of the water was also vital to restore the river.

"There are several causes (of chemical pollutants) and these include chemical use in the factories, as well as agricultural uses," she said.

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Master Naturalists put research into action around the state and in your backyard

What is a Master Naturalist?

We get that question a lot at University of Illinois Extension.  Master Naturalists are many things: Advocates, volunteers, teachers, and environmental stewards.  

Around the state and in your backyard, these trained volunteers connect their communities with the natural world by contributing to scientific research, leading educational programs, and putting their unique skills and talents to use through conservation and restoration projects.

Last year, more than 880 Master Naturalists put in nearly 70,500 hours removing invasive species, monitoring the health of waterways, raising and releasing monarch butterflies, teaching youth about the environment, and investing in the future of our natural areas.

• 886 Master Naturalists volunteered in Illinois
• 148 people took the training and became Master Naturalists
• 73,035 hours were volunteered.

The Illinois Extension Master Naturalist program leverages the expertise of university scientists and environmental partners to train adult volunteers to be environmental advocates. Our goal is to empower nature enthusiasts and help them put research into action wherever they live.

What does being a Master Naturalist look like?

Below are a few examples of the projects Master Naturalists are involved in. Explore more about how we’re putting knowledge to work in the 2023 Impact Report.

Read the 2023 Impact Report

Discovery of remnant prairie leads to educational outreach and conservation

In 2018, three Master Naturalists from Carroll, Lee, and Whiteside counties were exploring natural areas at the Lake Carroll Association community when they stumbled upon remnant prairie patches. Now, the association has more than 35 acres of native areas, a one-acre demonstration prairie, a pollinator garden, a new wetland filtering water before it enters the lake, expanded hiking trails, and so much more.

A walk in the woods transforms fourth graders’ relationship with nature

Kids ‘n Nature Adventure is a unique immersive afterschool and summer program partnership between the Illinois Extension Will County Master Naturalists, Joliet District 86 Grade Schools, and the Joliet Park District. The program gives 200 fourth-grade students from six underserved schools a chance to experience the natural world. The program began in 2005 and more than 2,000 youth have participated.

Repurposed feed and seed bags support pollinator project

Bird seed and pet food bags need to be sturdy, so they are often made from woven polypropylene plastic. This also makes them difficult to recycle, so like many other single-use plastics, they often end up in landfills. Master Naturalist Mona Maas has saved more than 300 bags from this fate by turning them into hand-sewn totes. These rugged recycled totes also have the added bonus of being a fundraiser to support a local pollinator garden.

Interested in becoming a Master Naturalist?

Learn how you can be a positive force for change by becoming an Illinois Extension Master Naturalist .

About the Blog

Naturalist News  is a blog by University of Illinois Extension Master Naturalist staff and volunteers who bring you stories highlighting the individuals, places, wildlife and plants that make this state amazing. Join us each week to learn something new, be inspired and become connected to your own community by recognizing the amazing ways we are all intertwined.

Sign up for the Naturalist News email

About the Author

Emily Steele  is a marketing communications manager on the Illinois Extension communications team and supports projects for natural resources, environment, and energy staff statewide including the Master Naturalist program, weather and climate, forestry, invasives, and nutrient loss reduction. She has a M.S. in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences from University of Illinois and a B.A. in Journalism from Eastern Illinois University.

Naturalist News

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Most US sandwich baggies contain toxic PFAS ‘forever chemicals’, analysis says

Testing commissioned by Mamavation blog found high levels of a marker of PFAS in nine of 11 baggies tested

Most of the nation’s plastic sandwich baggies contain toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, an analysis suggests , raising questions about the products’ safety in the US.

Testing of 11 types of baggies made by major producers showed high levels of a marker of PFAS in nine.

The analysis, conducted by an Environmental Protection Agency-certified lab and commissioned by the Mamavation blog, is the latest to highlight the use of PFAS in the nation’s food packaging.

US Food and Drug Administration rules allow much higher levels of some individual PFAS compounds in plastic than what the testing found, but the FDA is working off “outdated science” and the baggies present a health threat, said Maricel Maffini, a researcher with the Environmental Defense Fund who tracks PFAS in food.

“The more we look into PFAS, the more we know there is not a safe level, and the [FDA’s limits] don’t correspond with the science and knowledge we have of these chemicals,” she said.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down, and are linked to cancer, liver problems, thyroid issues, birth defects, kidney disease, decreased immunity and other serious health problems.

Contaminated food represents the main exposure route to PFAS, though most regulatory attention has focused on water. The FDA has faced criticism from independent scientists who say it is failing to protect the public from concerning levels of PFAS found in a range of foods .

Packaging is a major source of contamination. PFAS are widely added to packaging to prevent foods from sticking to products or as a grease-proofing agent, and research shows the chemicals can migrate at high levels into food and liquids. PFAS are also used to prevent plastics from sticking to equipment during manufacturing, which is what probably accounts for the chemicals found in the baggies, Maffini said.

Mamavation’s testing showed levels between 9 parts per million (ppm) and 34ppm, while the FDA allows up to 2,000ppm for seven types of PFAS it allows to be used in food-contact plastic. But it is unclear which PFAS were added to the baggies because the test did not look for individual compounds.

The revelation comes just after the EPA found that virtually no level of exposure to some PFAS in drinking water is safe, and a growing body of independent research shows widespread exposure to similar levels in food.

Regulators also have a history of allowing subgroups of PFAS to be added to packaging at high levels, only to later determine the products were poisoning consumers .

Among the brands Mamavation found contained the chemicals are Boulder, Complete Home, Great Value, If You Care, Lunchskins, Meijer, Target and Walgreens.

The only brand that did not show any markers of PFAS was Ziploc. Public health advocates say the best way consumers can protect themselves is to use glass containers instead of plastic.

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PRESS RELEASE

Global efforts needed to combat waste trafficking to southeast asia, new research by unodc and unep reveals  , bangkok (thailand), 2 april 2024.

A first-ever mapping of waste trafficking trends from Europe to Southeast Asia has been published today. Produced by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the new research sheds light on how criminal actors exploit legal trade and regulatory and enforcement loopholes for financial gain. It also explores the negative impact this crime has on the global circular economy.

Southeast Asia remains a key destination for illicit waste shipments, the report reveals, with Europe, North America, and Asia identified as primary regions of origin. Common tactics include false declarations, a lack of or incorrect notifications to circumvent regulations and avoid controls, along with missing or inadequate licenses or documents. 

“In today’s globalized world, waste management has become an increasingly pressing concern in which production, consumption habits, waste crime, waste trafficking, corruption, organized crime, money laundering, and the circular economy are intertwined,” said Masood Karimipour, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “The crime of waste trafficking is taking away the value that legal, well-regulated waste trade brings to sustainable economies.”

Data collected from four Southeast Asian countries, three major European Union ports, and international enforcement operations highlight efforts in tackling illegal waste shipments by both origin and destination countries. However, despite regulatory and enforcement measures implemented by countries in which illegal waste ends up — such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Viet Nam — waste trafficking continues to pose a major challenge in the region. 

“Waste trafficking is a crime that has a profound impact on the environment, bringing high profits and low risks to perpetrators. If we are to fight this crime, we must change this by closing regulatory gaps, increasing enforcement, and strengthening cooperation at home and abroad,” said Preeyaporn Suwannaked, Director General of the Pollution Control Department of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of Thailand.

The report, titled Turning the Tide: A Look Into the European Union-to-Southeast Asia Waste Trafficking Wave, is a flagship within a series of publications that explore corruption, cybercrime, and legal loopholes as causes behind the problem. It is part of a comprehensive project ( Unwaste ) to address waste trafficking and its impact on the global circular economy.

“The environmental impacts of waste trafficking are contributing to the pollution crisis and need to be addressed. To do this, we must pursue good environmental governance and robust environmental rule of law. Projects such as Unwaste are critical in tackling issues through a multi-sector, multi-disciplinary approach. UNEP is proud to be part of the project, which advances solutions aimed at ensuring a healthy planet and a sustainable future,” said Patricia Kameri-Mbote, Director of the Law Division in UNEP.

Key types of waste trafficked include plastic, e-waste, metal, and paper, with mixed materials, textiles, vehicle parts, industrial, and medical waste also frequently encountered. Upon arrival at destination, take-back or repatriation procedures are a major challenge as shipments often cannot be traced to their countries of origin. Abandoned or unclaimed containers at ports exacerbate the issue, further complicating enforcement and investigation efforts. As a result, most waste ends up in illegal landfills, the ocean, or burnt in the open. 

Often, penalties are disproportionately low compared to the potential environmental and health damage inflicted on destination countries. The research also shows a concerning lack of available data to assess the full scale of waste trafficking and identify the connections between criminal actors involved.

The report, which has been financed by the European Union, stresses the urgent need for further regulatory reforms, enhanced international cooperation, capacity development, research, and data along with stricter enforcement measures to combat waste trafficking effectively.

Click here to access the report series.

Waste trafficking leads to most waste ending up in illegal landfills, the ocean, or burnt in the open, thwarting any ambitions towards a circular economy

For media enquiries, please contact:

Laura Gil UNODC Communications Officer laura.gil[at]un.org

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