Page - 203 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

RiskPerceptionofPlasticPollution: ImportanceofStakeholder Involvement andCitizenScience KristianSyberg, SteffenFossHansen,ThomasBuddeChristensen, andFarhanR.Khan Abstract Riskperceptionhasasignificant impactonhowsociety reacts toagiven risk. There have been cases where a mismatch between the actual risk and the perception of it has led to poor decisions on societal initiatives, such as inappro- priate regulatorymeasures. It is therefore important that the perception of risk is based on an informed foundation acknowledging the biases and drivers that inev- itably gowith risk perception. Plastic pollution differs in regard to other classical risks, suchas thoseposedbychemicalsorgeneticallymodifiedorganisms(GMOs), since the pollution ismore visible and already has a significantmagnitude.At the same time, everyone is familiar with using plastic, and our daily lives are highly dependentontheuseofplastic.Thisofferssomepotential tostrengthenthesocietal risk perception and subsequently implement effective measures to address the pollution. In this chapter, we define eight risk perception drivers (voluntariness, control, knowledge, timing, severity, benefit, novelty, and tangibility) and relate these drivers to plastic pollution.We discuss the process inwhich plastic pollution has been recognized as an important environmental problemby scientists, the public, andpolicymakers andelaborateonhow the eight riskdrivers have influenced this process. Plastic pollution has several of the characteristics that can enhance peo- ple’s perception of the risk as being important and which has generated great awareness of the problem. The chapter finally discusses how risk perception can K.Syberg (*) andF.R.Khan Department ofScience andEnvironment,RoskildeUniversity,Roskilde,Denmark e-mail: ksyberg@ruc.dk S.F.Hansen Department ofEnvironmentalEngineering,TechnicalUniversity ofDenmark,Lyngby, Denmark T.B.Christensen Department ofHumanandTechnology,RoskildeUniversity,Roskilde,Denmark M.Wagner, S.Lambert (eds.),FreshwaterMicroplastics, HdbEnvChem58,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-61615-5_10, ©TheAuthor(s) 2018 203