Page - 274 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

postconsumermaterial ormaintainmaterial efficacy through recycling, regulated design, and producer responsibility;many proposed solutions fall under linear or circulareconomicmodels.Recentefforts tobringoftenunheardstakeholders to the table, includingwaste pickers in developing countries, have shednew light on the lifecycleofplastic inasocial justicecontext, in response to thegrowingeconomic andhumanhealth concerns. In thischapterwediscuss themainsolutions,stakeholdercosts,andbenefits.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. Keywords Extended producer responsibility, Marine debris solutions, Microplastic, Plasticmarine pollution,Recycling,Reuse 1 ResearchConclusionsGuideSolutions Since 2010 there have been more research publications about plastic marine pollution than in the previous four decades, bringing the issue mainstream as a robust field of science and in public discourse. Much of what we know can be summarized in three conclusions: fragmented plastic is globally distributed, it is associated with a cocktail of hazardous chemicals and thus is another source of hazardous chemicals to aquatic habitats and animals, and it entangles and is ingested by hundreds of species of wildlife at every level of the food chain including animalswe consider seafood [1]. GlobalDistributionofMicroplastics Theglobaldistributionofplastics isaresult of the fragmentation and transportation bywind and currents to the aquatic envi- ronment, from inland lakes and rivers to the open ocean and likely deposition to coastlines or the seafloor [2]. New studies are showing increasing abundances of microplastic upstream, showing that microplastic formation is not limited to the sea, though itwas discovered there. Thefirst observations of plastic in the oceanweremade in 1972 in thewestern NorthAtlanticconsistingofpreproductionpelletsanddegradedfragments foundin plankton tows [3]. Studies in theNorthPacific [4, 5], andSouthAtlantic followed [6]. Scientistswere beginning tounderstand theglobal implicationsof fragmented plastics traveling long distances. “Data from our oceanic survey suggests that plastic fromboth intra- andextra-gyral sourcesbecomesconcentrated in thecenter of the gyre, inmuch the same fashion thatSargassumdoes [7].” In 2001CaptainCharlesMoore published his discovery of an accumulation of microplastics in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre [8]. This findingmight have joined the trickle of research that had been published in the previous quarter century, but sensationalizedmedia stories reported fictional islands of trash con- verging in the ocean that were forming garbage patches twice the size of Texas. 274 M.Eriksen et al.