Micro- and nanoplastics in the environment: Research and policymaking

João Pinto da Costa

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The presence of micro- and nanoplastics in the environment has steadily increased.

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These pose a severe threat to the environment, biota and possibly human health.

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There are numerous challenges and limitations facing research on these issues.

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Many regulatory tools exist, but these have so far been inefficient.

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Only an adequate research-policy making articulation will yield meaningful results.

Interesting management measures being taken include:

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Preventive – may encompass reuse, reduction at sources, recycling and multiple land-based management actions;

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Removal – includes debris monitoring and clean-up initiatives;

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Mitigation – comprises litter disposal and development of dumping regulations;

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Educational – covers awareness campaigns and economic/incentive approaches.

Knowledge gaps remaining include:

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Insufficient regulatory scope regarding the main sources of plastic pollution;

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Lack of implementation and enforcement of existing regulations and management actions;

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Poor international cooperation and insufficient participation of states in regional initiatives and;

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Inexistence of sufficient data regarding the prevalence and of marine plastic debris in the environment.

Researchers and policy makers operate under different settings, each within their own professional settings and culture, resources, timeframes and resources. It is therefore imperative to create and implement initiatives that allow for a better, more proactive interaction between all stakeholders. Ultimately, developing evidence-based policies should not remain a linear process, but rather a dynamic and complex procedure, a circular process that may be described as “knowledge brokering”.

Knowledge brokering hence aims at encouraging policy-makers to be more receptive and responsive to research findings, and to simultaneously stimulate researchers to conduct research that is relevant in terms of policy development and implementation and to communicate and translate their findings in a meaningful way to policy makers. Such goals may be achieved through:

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Organization of joint forums for researchers and policy makers;

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Fostering communication through the building of relationships of trust;

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Setting common goals and agendas;

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Clarification of informational needs, by, for example, commissioning syntheses of research of policy relevance;

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Strengthening knowledge sharing and translation;

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Monitoring the know-do gap, including the impacts, as evidenced by research, of implemented policies.

Interesting terms: blue economy, know-do gap

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2017.11.002