Role of Environmental Science in Tackling Plastic Pollution

The book volume “Plastics in the Aquatic Environment – Part I: Current Status and Challenges” gives an overview about the role of environmental science and provides a sense of the global perspective in dealing with plastic pollution. The volume contains 15 chapters, with two additional chapters written by the editors containing introductory remarks and concluding notes on the role of environmental science in tackling the plastic pollution problem. These 15 chapters present and discuss challenges in research, related, for example, to microplastics analysis, impacts of plastic litter on aquatic environments, plastic waste management, bioplastics; they also review case studies of plastic pollution and contamination in the Philippines, Brazil, Albania, Slovenia, Russia and East Asia, as well as the Mediterranean Sea at large. This chapter provides an overview of the conclusions drawn by the authors of the chapters of this book volume and gives an overall final discussion of the challenges discussed herein.