Research on Estimating Plastic Leakage into the Environment

Dear Colleagues,

As you are well-aware, plastic waste entering the environment is a growing social, economic and environmental hazard. While there is an estimated 4.8-2 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste entering the ocean each year, overall there has been little large-scale, empirical work to understand how accurate that estimate is. To fill this data gap, we invite you to submit your work providing evidence of how much, what types, and where litter is entering the environment within your country or region. The focus of this special issue is to highlight original research taking place at multiple countries around the world, with an eye to enabling comparisons at multiple scales whilst understanding key drivers that result in waste entering the environment. We invite you to include opportunities to reduce plastic and increase sustainability at local, regional and global scales in your submission. We also ask you to contextualize your research, relating your work to the growing body of existing literature on this important topic, whilst sharing information regarding relevant governance or policy related measures aimed at reducing waste leakage to the environment and/or resource recovery.

Dr. Britta Denise Hardesty
Dr. Qamar Schuyler
Guest Editors

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