Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been progressively used as an tool to quantify and compare environmental impacts in the food and beverage industry. This paper reviews LCAs on single-use food and beverage plastic products from January 2000 to June 2022. Studies are also analysed in the context of marine plastic pollution which is a global concern. A total of 91 studies were reviewed with 44% conducted for the European region. Findings suggest that most studies follow the traditional approach and structure of LCA with some studies focusing on global warming potential and others incorporating aspects such as life cycle costs and mass-based indicators. A total of 62% of reviewed studies had a cradle-to-grave scope. LCA studies can be influenced by public discourse, for example, the rising concern surrounding plastic marine pollution. From 2019, additional environmental indicators have been included in LCAs wherein the product is a major contributor to pollution. To date, six studies have proposed marine litter indicators. In future years, we can expect further development of life cycle impact assessment methods to reflect concerns in the public discourse. This includes methodologies for assessing circularity or plastic pollution. Furthermore, product foci will continue to follow popular trends.

Seabirds have been the messengers of marine plastics pollution since the 1950s, not long after plastics began to be commercially manufactured. In the decades since, a number of multilateral agreements have emerged to address marine plastics pollution that have been informed by research and monitoring on plastic ingestion in seabirds. Seabirds continue to serve as effective monitors for plastics pollution in the oceans, and increasingly of the chemical contamination from the marine environment as plastic additives and chemicals can adsorb and accumulate in seabirds’ tissues. Plastics pollution has far-reaching ecological impacts, but the motivation for addressing the issue has escalated rapidly at the international level. Seabirds are also the most globally threatened group of birds and require concerted conservation actions to mitigate population declines from multiple pressures. However, most policy mechanisms focus on the monitoring and mitigation of anthropogenically induced stressors, using seabird data, and often fail to include mechanisms to conserve the messengers. In this review, we discuss how research on the impacts of plastics on seabirds is used to inform policy and highlight the competing interests of monitoring and conservation that emerge from this approach. Finally, we discuss policy opportunities to ensure seabirds can continue to be the indicators of ocean health and simultaneously achieve conservation goals.

Marine plastic pollution (MPP) has become ubiquitous in the oceans and is damaging human health, ecosystems, and economies which has resulted in a mandate for a new binding plastics treaty. What would an effective treaty look like? What explains this relatively new global crisis? This review article argues that the work of Karl Polanyi and stage theory can put the MPP problem into context and illuminate requirements of an effective treaty. Polanyi argued that if market society did not restrain the capitalist use of land (nature), labor, and money it would destroy itself and MPP will only be solved if these social and environmental protections restrain capital. Stage theory looks at the evolving expressions of capitalism in distinct historical periods to provide context for the global economy and implies a structural remedy for the plastics in the ocean. In particular, the post-War Fordist stage introducing mass production and the following post-Fordist neoliberal period witnessed progressively thinned restraints on capital and the global plastic flow is a function of these changes over time resulting in continuously increasing MPP.

In the battle against plastic pollution, many efforts are being undertaken to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics. If tackled in the right way, these efforts have the potential to contribute to reducing plastic waste and plastic’s spread in the environment. However, reusing and recycling plastics can also lead to unintended negative impacts because hazardous chemicals, like endocrine disrupters and carcinogens, can be released during reuse and accumulate during recycling. In this way, plastic reuse and recycling become vectors for spreading chemicals of concern. This is especially concerning when plastics are reused for food packaging, or when food packaging is made with recycled plastics. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that care is taken to avoid hazardous chemicals in plastic food contact materials (FCMs) and to ensure that plastic packaging that is reused or made with recycled content is safe for human health and the environment. The data presented in this review are obtained from the Database on Migrating and Extractable Food Contact Chemicals (FCCmigex), which is based on over 800 scientific publications on plastic FCMs. We provide systematic evidence for migrating and extractable food contact chemicals (FCCs) in plastic polymers that are typically reused, such as polyamide (PA), melamine resin, polycarbonate and polypropylene, or that contain recycled content, such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A total of 1332 entries in the FCCmigex database refer to the detection of 509 FCCs in repeat-use FCMs made of plastic, and 853 FCCs are found in recycled PET, of which 57.6% have been detected only once. Here, we compile information on the origin, function and hazards of FCCs that have been frequently detected, such as melamine, 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol, 2,6-di-tert-butylbenzoquinone, caprolactam and PA oligomers and highlight key knowledge gaps that are relevant for the assessment of chemical safety.

Plastics pollute all environmental compartments because of human activities and mismanagement. Public perceptions and knowledge about plastic pollution differ among individuals and across different jurisdictions. Targeted survey-based research tools can help measure consumer awareness about the impacts of mismanaged plastics and help identify trends and solutions to reduce plastic use and plastic pollution. This review primarily focused on survey-based research from presenters at the scientific track session TS-2.15 Plastic Pulse of the Public at the 7th International Marine Debris Conference (www.7imdc.org) and supplemented by contemporary literature. Survey-based research helps provide new insights about public opinions related to the pervasiveness of plastic pollution. This review includes results about consumer use and perceptions of plastic pollution impacts from diverse studies from nine countries including Ghana, Kenya, Bangladesh, Pakistan, United States, Canada, Norway, Germany, and United Kingdom. Overwhelmingly, public perceptions and consumer awareness of the negative impacts of plastic pollution were extremely high, regardless of geographic location. Awareness about the environmental impacts of plastic waste and plastic pollution was highest within younger, white, female, and well-educated demographic groups. However, differences were observed in public attitudes toward willingness to pay for sustainable alternatives, end-of-life plastic uses, unintended consequences, recycling, and mismanagement.

Increasingly plastic pollution is being recognized as a critical environmental and human health threat of unprecedented scale and complexity. While trends in plastic production and consumption are still on the rise, the negative effects of uncollected, mismanaged, dumped or incinerated plastic waste are causing profound impacts on the environment, oceans, climate and food chains compromising the quality of life for humans and other living beings, with expected cumulative negative effects for the near future. Particularly populations in the Global South, where new markets for plastic consumer goods have rapidly emerged over the past 30 years, while waste management, in general, has remained precarious, underfunded or inexistent, directly experience the burdens of plastic pollution. The emerging environmental problems are particularly visible in these regions and so are also possible solutions and alternatives. Approximately 20 million informal workers already recover plastic waste from the garbage in the Global South, usually working under precarious, risky and poorly paid conditions. The literature claims that they represent a workforce that if recognized, integrated and valued and under decent work conditions and fair remuneration could potentially increase significantly the capturing of plastic waste and reduce the amount of fugitive plastics. This review paper applies an anthropogenic global environmental change theory lens to discuss the key challenges in managing plastic waste and global plastic pollution, uncovering major causes, impacts from dispersion and leakage of plastics into soil, water and air, recognizing the relational and geographic perspectives of plastic waste. A concerted effort is required to coordinating policies and technological solutions in order to strengthening, fund and recognize the waste picker sector as a key protagonist in addressing this waste issue.

Over the past decade, there have been increasing recognition and concern of the toxicological impacts of microplastics (MPs) in the environment, which have been widely found in various marine environments from estuary to deep oceans. Numerous toxicological studies have been conducted on the impacts of MPs on various marine organisms, especially phytoplankton, zooplankton, bivalves, and fish of different trophic levels. These studies mainly focused on the measurements of MPs bioaccumulation and their resulting biological impacts at molecular, metabolic, biochemical, physiological, and organismic levels. This review examines the various studies conducted over the recent years on the toxicology of MPs in different marine organisms, particularly on the bioaccumulation and toxicity of MPs. The impacts of MPs on marine organisms are diverse, and the complexity of organism physiology as well as MPs physical and chemical properties need to be considered. Future studies should consider the environmental relevance of toxicological research and the development of quantitative tools to model the transport, bioaccumulation, and toxicity of MPs. These are important for the real environmental risk assessments of MPs in the marine environments.

Policy effectiveness is a critical measure for assessing whether policies are working and determining necessary adjustments. However, understanding the effectiveness of plastic policies is a significant gap in the toolkit driving solutions to the plastics crisis. This review examines effectiveness evaluations and existing tools for assessing policy effectiveness. The review further identifies the barriers to understanding effectiveness before proposing ways forward. Most studies focus on plastic bag bans or taxes, neglecting other policy instruments. Additionally, these studies often employ simple attribution approaches, rather than causal inference methods, limiting our ability to determine the true impact of policies on desired outcomes. The lack of monitoring and evaluation of plastic policies further hampers knowledge acquisition. The global understanding of the plastics economy and measurable success metrics is insufficient, hindering the design of systemic interventions. These findings highlight the development and evaluation of plastic policies with limited information. A more nuanced understanding of effective plastic policies is necessary, including a harmonised approach to evaluations, a shared definition of effectiveness, the use of rapid assessment tools and the integration of monitoring and evaluation into policy instruments.

While calls for Indigenous participation in plastics pollution governance are increasingly common, exactly what participation means remains unclear. This review investigates how English-language peer-reviewed and gray literature describe Indigenous participation and its barriers and analyzes the dominant terms, models, enactments, and theories of Indigenous participation in plastics pollution work. We find that different actors – Indigenous people and organizations, non-Indigenous authors, mixed collaborations, and settler governments and NGOs – are talking about participation in acutely different ways. Non-Indigenous actors tend to focus on the inclusion of Indigenous people, either as data, knowledge, or a presence in existing frameworks. Mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous author groups focus on partnership and collaboration, though with significant diversity in terms of what modes of decision-making, rights, and leadership these collaborations entail. Indigenous authors and organization advocate for participation premised on Indigenous rights, sovereignty, creation, and leadership. We end by characterizing Indigenous Environmental Justice (IEJ) in the literature. IEJ provides a notably unique way of understanding and intervening in plastics pollution. The text is designed so researchers and organizers can be more specific, deliberate, and just in the way Indigenous peoples participate in plastic pollution research, initiatives, and governance.

Plastic production has greatly increased in the past decades and has become central to modern human life. Realization is dawning that plastics break down into smaller pieces resulting in micro- or nanoplastics (MNP) that can enter humans directly via the environment. Indeed, MNP have been detected in every part of the human body, including the placenta, which is concerning for development. Early developmental stages are crucial for proper growth and genome programming. Environmental disruptors in MNP can have detrimental effects during this critical window as well and can increase the risk of developing disease and dysfunction. In addition, MNP may impact situations in which developmental pathways are reactivated after birth such as during organ repair. Currently, there is no overview of how MNP can impair (human) development and repair. Therefore, we provide an extensive overview of available evidence on MNP impacting developmental and regenerative processes in various organs in humans and rodent models. In addition, we have included the impact of some additives that can leach from these MNP. We conclude that MNP and their additives can have modulating effects on developing and regenerating organs.