Seite - 117 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

4.1.3 PublicAwareness The role of the general public through awareness and active involvement (i.e., citizenscience) isdiscussed indetail elsewhere in thisbook,bothwithanhistorical overviewandspecifics related toMPpollution (seeSyberget al. thisvolume[62]). Briefly it couldbe suggested that in comparison toother environmental issues, the publichasbeen invaluable inassessing themagnitudeofplastics andMPpollution through volunteer beach cleanups and surveys that provide data for monitoring programmers, aswell as carryingout thepractical taskof removingbeach litter. In theUSAmost informationregardingtheabundanceanddistributionofbeachdebris has been derived from volunteer beach cleaning efforts [63], and such public involvement is also occurring elsewhere. Public collaboration with scientific research has taken place in a number of locations worldwide, for instance, the collection ofmarine litter in the Firth of Forth, Scotland [64], collection of beach debris along the coast of southeastChile [65], andmany volunteersmobilized for beach surveys in SouthAfrica [66]. However, to the best of our knowledge, such public-involving initiatives have not been attempted in areas surroundingAfrican freshwaters. Part of this problem may be, as has been discussed, a scarcity of information regarding the scale of potentialMPpollution,which results in a lack of funding and a lackof awareness. Asdiscussed, fundingforenvironmental issuesmaynotbethehighestpriority in mostAfrican countries, butNGOswhich could collaborativelyworkwith various publicsectorshavepaid littleornoattentioninraisingpublicawareness inthe issue of plastic waste management [67]. Similarly, the opportunities for 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) are not well explored and advocated in developing countries [68]. It has been suggested that improved education on the issues of wasteman- agement indevelopingcountries,and thepreparationandtrainingofenvironmental professionals and technicians, could be theway forward. Some developing coun- tries have reported positive effects from investing in education, such as citizens assuming responsibility andhigher statusofwasteworkers,whichhave resulted in cleaner cities [68]. Suchprogramswouldpotentially have similar results in urban- ized regions around African freshwaters, and the downstream effect of cleaner cities would be less urban waste fromwhich to produceMPs. But as mentioned earlier in this section, the increase of awareness and education of the population must be coupled with an increase in effective waste management and ultimately coherent regional political action. 4.2 FutureResearchNeeds To discuss the future research needs, we revisit the themes of this chapter – presence, sources, and fate ofMPs inAfrican inlandwaters.Asmentioned several times, there is a dearth of information regarding the prevalence of MPs within Microplastics in InlandAfricanWaters: Presence, Sources, andFate 117