Reducing Uncertainty and Confronting Ignorance about the Possible Impacts of Weathering Plastic in the Marine Environment

Jahnke, Annika; Arp, Hans Peter H.; Escher, Beate I.; Gewert, Berit; Gorokhova, Elena; Kühnel, Dana; Ogonowski, Martin; Potthoff, Annegret; Rummel, Christoph; Schmitt-Jansen, Mechthild; Toorman, Erik; MacLeod, Matthew

doi:10.1021/acs.estlett.7b00008

Reducing Uncertainty and Confronting Ignorance about the Possible Impacts of Weathering Plastic in the Marine Environment

Plastic in the global oceans fulfills two of the three conditions for pollution to pose a planetary boundary threat because it is causing planetary-scale exposure that is not readily reversible. Plastic is a planetary boundary threat if it is having a currently unrecognized disruptive effect on a…