New publication: Embrace complexity to understand microplastic pollution
We've heard it before: (micro)plastic pollution is complex and is a wicked problem. In our new comment in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, we say embrace this to holistically understand the issue.
Michael Bank, Denise M. Mitrano, Matthias Rillig, Carol Sze Ki Lin, Yong Sik Ok. Embrace Complexity to understand microplastic pollution. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. 2022. external pageSee publication here
Environmental cycling of microplastics and nanoplastics is complex; fully understanding these pollutants is hindered by inconsistent methodologies and experimentation within a narrow scope. Consistent methods are needed to advance plastic research and policy within the context of global environmental change.
Plastics and products of their degradation — microplastics (MPs), nanoplastics (NPs) and their associated chemicals — are transported through ecosystems. MP cycling is complex and incompletely understood owing to analytical barriers and the narrow scope and scale of many experi- ments. Moreover, plastics pollution is frequently framed as an ecotoxicological or ecosystem health issue, limiting the research questions asked and disciplines engaged in its research. Complexity is a central theme in the plastics pollution cycle. Such system level thinking is critical for policy relevant, source apportionment modelling and regional and global mass balance estimates of plastics pollution across relevant spatial and temporal scales.
Here, we argue that to understand the cycling and impacts of plastics (including MPs and NPs), research- ers must embrace complexity, reframe the issue from a solely ecotoxicological one, and develop more analyti- cal techniques and laboratory experiments that better measure and mimic real-world scenarios.