Science on the Hill: Solving the Plastic Waste Problem

“Science on the Hill” is an event series that connects experts in the scientific community directly with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Published in Sustainability
Science on the Hill: Solving the Plastic Waste Problem
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Scientific American and Nature Research—as part of Springer Nature—host the series with sponsorship by Congressman Jerry McNerney (CA-09). This year’s event, “Science on the Hill: Solving the Plastic Waste Problem,” brings together three experts (Dr. Morton A. Barlaz, Rob Kaplan, and Dr. Kara Lavender Law) for a panel discussion moderated by Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina. They will address how plastic waste is a threat to the environment and how providing solutions can be a boost for businesses and lead to job growth.

Following the event, Scientific American has produced two podcasts featuring discussions that took place at Science on the Hill: Solving the Plastic Waste problem. These address:

We have curated the content below from across Springer Nature’s publications on this topic:

How Plastic Became a Plague: This In Depth Report, curated by Scientific American, is a collection of articles that discuss how plastic pollution permeates the environment and poses a threat to human and planetary health: http://sciam.com/plastic

The rise in ocean plastics evidenced from a 60-year time series: This study presents a new time series, from 1957 to 2016 and covering over 6.5 million nautical miles, and is the first to confirm a significant increase in open ocean plastics in recent decades. https://rdcu.be/bCso9

Arctic sea ice is an important temporal sink and means of transport for microplastic: Increasing exploitation of Arctic resources will likely lead to a higher microplastic load in the Arctic sea ice and will enhance the release of microplastic in the areas of strong seasonal sea ice melt and the outflow gateways. https://rdcu.be/bCspT

Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic: Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. https://rdcu.be/bCspY

Atmospheric transport and deposition of microplastics in a remote mountain catchment: This study suggests that microplastics can reach and affect remote, sparsely inhabited areas through atmospheric transport. https://rdcu.be/bCsp7

River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans: The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies. https://rdcu.be/bCsqi

Plastic waste interferes with chemical communication in aquatic ecosystems: Plastic waste can have indirect effects on organisms, which may manifest at the community level. https://rdcu.be/bCsq1

Closing the plastics loop: Civil society, businesses, governments and academia should unite forces to transform the plastic economy.  https://rdcu.be/bCsrk

Microplastic contamination of river beds significantly reduced by catchment-wide flooding: We conclude that microplastic contamination is efficiently flushed from river catchments during flooding. https://rdcu.be/bCsru

Marine litter plastics and microplastics and their toxic chemicals components: the need for urgent preventive measures: Persistent plastics, with an estimated lifetime for degradation of hundreds of years in marine conditions, can break up into micro- and nanoplastics over shorter timescales, thus facilitating their uptake by marine biota throughout the food chain.  https://rdcu.be/bCssi

Effects of polystyrene nanoparticles on the microbiota and functional diversity of enzymes in soil: This study demonstrates the potential antimicrobial activity of polystyrene nanoparticles in soil, and this may serve as an important resource in environmental risk assessment of polystyrene nanoparticles in the soil environment. https://rdcu.be/bCssC  

The Beachcomber’s Guide to Marine Debris: This book addresses a global topic in marine pollution and a key issue in marine tourism. We have provided free access to the first chapter: https://rdcu.be/bCUW8

The vertical distribution and biological transport of marine microplastics across the epipelagic and mesopelagic water column: One of the largest and currently underappreciated reservoirs of marine microplastics may exist within the pelagic zone, the deep-sea water column of the open ocean, according to a study in Monterey Bay, California, published in Scientific Reports:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44117-2

By Erica Wong, Communications Manager, External and Internal, Springer Nature

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