Microplastic: What are the solutions?

Abstract

The plastic that pollutes our waterways and the ocean gyres is a symptom of upstream material mismanagement, resulting in its ubiquity throughout the biosphere in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. While environmental contamination is widespread, there are several reasonable intervention points present as the material flows through society and the environment, from initial production to deep-sea microplastic sedimentation. Plastic passes through the hands of many stakeholders, with responsibility for environmental contamination owned, shared, or rejected by plastic producers, product/packaging manufacturers, government, consumers, and waste handlers. The contemporary debate about solutions, in a broad sense, largely contrasts the circular economy with the current linear economic model. While there is a wide agreement that improved waste recovery is essential, how that waste is managed is a different story. The subjective positions of stakeholders illuminate their economic philosophy, whether it is to maintain demand for new plastic by incinerating postconsumer material or maintain material efficacy through recycling, regulated design, and producer responsibility; many proposed solutions fall under linear or circular economic models. Recent efforts to bring often unheard stakeholders to the table, including waste pickers in developing countries, have shed new light on the life cycle of plastic in a social justice context, in response to the growing economic and human health concerns. In this chapter we discuss the main solutions, stakeholder costs, and benefits. We emphasize the role of the “honest broker” in science, to present the best analysis possible to create the most viable solutions to plastic pollution for public and private leadership to utilize.