This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.31223/X5P05H. This is version 3 of this Preprint.
This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.31223/X5P05H. This is version 3 of this Preprint.
Plastics are novel entities that have exceeded the planetary safe operating space due to extensive and resource-intensive production, uncontrolled environmental releases, and failure to control the chemicals within the materials. This paper examines evidence and discusses how plastics pollution affects Earth-system processes along the impact pathway from production, to release, to environmental fate and impacts of plastics and their additives. Multiple lines of evidence are necessary to capture the complex reality of these substances and attempts to quantify a singular boundary would be detrimental to the global governance of plastics. We demonstrate causal links between plastics and other major environmental problems at the global scale, exacerbating the consequences of breaching other planetary boundaries, especially climate change and biodiversity loss. We propose ways to translate these assessments into control variables for the globally and biophysically defined planetary boundaries framework that can be utilized to tackle plastics pollution. Efforts should be oriented towards further developing and monitoring a set of control variables that describe the actual state of the system along the impact pathway. We call for experts and policymakers to take urgent action, considering plastics pollution not only as a waste management problem but as an integrative part of climate change, biodiversity and natural resource use policy.
https://doi.org/10.31223/X5P05H
Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies
planetary boundaries framework; plastics pollution; climate change, microplastic, Earth system processes, planetary boundaries framework, plastics pollution, climate change, microplastics, Earth systems processes
Published: 2022-10-22 18:21
Last Updated: 2022-10-27 22:59
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no competing interests
There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.