Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154

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Environmental Science and Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci

Ten inconvenient questions about plastics in the sea T

a,⁎ b
Giuseppe Bonanno , Martina Orlando-Bonaca
a
Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Catania, Via Antonino Longo 19, 95125, Catania, Italy
b
Marine Biology Station, National Institute of Biology, Fornace 41, 6330, Piran, Slovenia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper aims to investigate some of the hottest issues that concern the increasing presence of plastics in the
Marine pollution sea. In an attempt to identify the main knowledge gaps and to suggest future research, we discuss priority topics
Plastic debris on marine plastic pollution through ten thought-provoking questions on the current knowledge of multiple
Marine wildlife consequences of plastics on the marine ecosystem. Our investigation found that the majority of knowledge gaps
Marine ecology
include not only intrinsic aspects of plastics (e.g. quantification, typology, fate), but also biological, ecological
Food webs
and legislative implications (e.g. ingestion rate by wildlife, biomagnification across food webs, spread of alien
Marine conservation
species, consequences for human nutrition, mitigation measures). The current scenario shows that science is still
far from assessing the real magnitude of the impact that plastics have on the sea. In particular, the transfer of
plastics across marine trophic levels emerged as one of the most critical knowledge gaps. Current regulations
seem not sufficient to tackle the massive release of plastics into the sea. Within this complex picture, a positive
note is the ever-increasing public awareness. The release of plastics into the sea is certainly a serious environ-
mental issue that can be effectively addressed only through the combined efforts of the three main stakeholders:
ordinary citizens through more eco-friendly behaviours, scientists by filling knowledge gaps, and policymakers
by passing conservation laws relying on prevention and scientific evidence.

Introduction
Plastic is a material that has existed for over one century, and
provides a wide range of societal benefits in the fields of industry,
construction, medicine and food preservation (Geyer et al., 2017).
Plastic became soon a basic component for manufacturing numerous
everyday products, and since the 1950s, its production has increased
exponentially (PlasticsEurope, 2017). This has led to the definition of
“Age of Plastics”, where almost all human products contain this mate-
rial (Amaral-Zettler et al., 2015). At the same time, however, mass
production of plastics resulted in growing environmental concerns due
to inadequate waste disposal, ubiquitous distribution and slow de-
gradation rates, even of centuries (Andrady, 2015; Jambeck et al.,
2015). Plastic products offer short-term benefits but their longer-term
impact is rarely assessed (Rochman et al., 2013). In particular, the ever-
increasing quantity of different plastic debris entering the seas has
made plastics worldwide-recognized pollutants of economic, social and
political concern, since they pose a threat to marine wildlife and eco-
systems, industry, and food security (Ivar do Sul and Costa, 2014; G7,
2015). The first important studies on the occurrence of plastics in
marine environments go back to the 1970s (e.g. Carpenter et al., 1972).
However, despite the long-standing scientific interest, there are still
significant gaps of knowledge on the impact of plastics released into the
sea, and mitigating the effects of plastic debris is a challenging priority
of current conservation policies (Clark et al., 2016). Given the ever-
increasing quantity of plastics in the marine environment, identifying
key areas for further understanding the multiple consequences of plastic
pollution is of the utmost urgency. This paper reflects the growing
concern for the uncontrolled release of plastics into the sea, the nu-
merous knowledge gaps of their ecological impact, and the urgent need
to implement mitigation measures. Compared to previous studies
(Vegter et al., 2014; Seltenrich, 2015; Rochman et al., 2016; Borrelle
et al., 2017), we developed a list of ten research questions encom-
passing the main aspects of plastic release into the sea such as total
amount, origin and fate, ecological impact, biomagnification, effects on
marine life, and legislative issues. To select the scientific topics, we
searched the Scopus Literature Database until January 2018 for articles
regarding marine plastic pollution by using different combinations of
the keywords “marine pollution”, “plastic pollution”, “plastic debris”,
“plastic litter”, and “marine wildlife”. We first compiled a preliminary
list of questions that were then reduced to ten fundamental research
questions by removing redundant topics. These ten questions were re-
ported in no order of priority, and per each question, after discussing
the general state of information, we pointed out current knowledge

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bonanno.giuseppe@unict.it (G. Bonanno).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2018.04.005
Received 2 March 2018; Received in revised form 4 April 2018; Accepted 4 April 2018
1462-9011/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Bonanno, M. Orlando-Bonaca
gaps and suggested future lines of research. Answering these ten “in-
convenient” questions will also provide solid scientific evidence to
guide actions of management and mitigation of marine plastic pollu-
tion.
Question 1: are there realistic estimates of the quantity of plastics
released into the sea?
Plastic production increased rapidly worldwide over the last 60
years: 0.50 million tons/year in 1960 (Beall, 2009), 30 million tons/
year in 1988 (O’Hara et al., 1988), 265 million tons/year in 2010
(PEMRG, 2011), 300 million tons/year in 2015 (PlasticsEurope, 2015),
up to 335 million tons/year in 2016 (PlasticsEurope, 2017). Only 4 to
6% of all the oil and gas used in Europe is employed in the production
of plastic materials, and in the last ten years, over 2.6 billion tons of
plastics were produced globally (PlasticsEurope, 2017). Geyer et al.
(2017) estimated that 8300 million metric tons (Mt) as of virgin plastics
have been produced to date, and that since 2015, approximately
6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had
been recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in
landfills or the natural environment. If current production and waste
management trends continue, about 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will
accumulate in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050 (Geyer
et al., 2017). In particular, Europe ranked second at global level with
20% of the total production, amounting to 60 million tons of plastics
produced in 2016, and giving job to over 1.50 million people, sup-
porting about 60,000 companies, with a turnover close to 350 billion
euros in 2016, which contributed to 30 billion euros to public finances
and welfare in 2016 (PlasticsEurope, 2017). Around 60–80 % of the
world litter is of plastic origin (Derraik, 2002), and although plastics are
internationally recognized pollutants subjected to legislation aimed to
mitigate the amount of plastic debris released into the sea (Lozano and
Mouat, 2009), Thompson (2006) assessed that up to 10% of plastics
globally produced enter the marine environment annually, where they
can accumulate and persist for hundreds of years. However, according
to Jambeck et al. (2015), between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastics
are believed to have ended up into the sea in 2010 from terrestrial
sources, resulting in 1.8–4.8% of the total plastics produced globally, a
figure significantly lower than the 10% reported by Thompson (2006).
Another aspect is assessing the aliquot of plastics in the sea that float
on the marine surface. Almost 270,000 tons of plastics are supposed to
float currently in the oceans according to the data collected in 24 ex-
peditions (2007–2013) across all five sub-tropical gyres, Australian
coasts, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean sea (Eriksen et al., 2014).
Other estimates relying on global surveys (Cózar et al. 2014; Eriksen
et al. 2014) and different models of surface ocean transport (Lebreton
et al. 2012; Maximenko et al. 2012), found a value of the total buoyant
plastics (<200 mm in size) ranging between 93,300 and 236,000 tons
(van Sebille et al., 2015). However, even considering both larger
plastics (>200 mm in size), which are likely to be more than 70% of the
total mass of plastics at the marine surface (Eriksen et al., 2014), and
thick plastic debris that rapidly sink to the seafloor, it is still difficult to
reconcile the aliquot of floating plastics with estimates of total plastic
inputs into the sea (Clark et al., 2016), suggesting that plastics are re-
moved from the marine surface through unknown processes.
Several global surveys were carried out in the last few years to as-
sess the amount of floating macro- and micro-plastics (Cózar et al.,
2014; Reisser et al., 2015), and some studies investigated also their
presence in sediments and biota (Lusher et al., 2013; Van
Cauwenberghe et al., 2015). However, quantitative estimates of the
global abundance of marine plastics are still limited and disputed,
especially for remote regions (Lusher et al., 2015). In the light of the
current studies and available data, we are still unable to provide precise
estimates of the global quantity of plastics into the sea. Indeed, al-
though we know the annual world production of plastics and the in-
formation from numerous global surveys is available, there are still
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Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154
significant discrepancies between the estimated quantity of plastics
released into the sea and the quantity of marine plastics surveyed and
forecasted. Realistic estimates of marine plastics are also hampered by
lack of uniformity in the approach to quantification (Ryan et al., 2009).
This includes lack of standardized sampling methodologies as well as
lack of standardized definition, size and characterization of marine
plastics (Ryan, 2013). Plastic debris first enters coastal waters and then,
through numerous biological and hydrogeological processes, reaches
open sea (Cole et al., 2011). However, quantifying plastic debris in the
open sea is challenging due to economics (e.g. ship costs for dedicated
surveys) and the huge spatial areas that need to be surveyed (Morishige
et al. 2007). Ships of opportunity (e.g. commercial vessels) used for
monitoring plastics debris in the open sea do not seem sufficient for
exhaustive surveys (Reisser et al., 2013). In the future, surveys may also
rely on satellite imagery of the sea surface to estimate the abundance of
plastic debris (Vegter et al., 2014). Overall, field techniques currently
used for oceanographic studies in the open sea need further refinement
and development to quantify the load of plastic debris (Hidalgo-Ruz
et al., 2012; Eriksson et al., 2013). Quantifying the inputs of plastic
debris into the marine environment is also difficult for the vastness of
the oceans compared to the size of plastics. Moreover, spatial and
temporal variability of plastics due to oceanic currents and seasonal
patterns further complicate their quantification (Doyle et al., 2011).
Regular and widespread surveying of coastal areas seems thus one of
the best feasible approaches to provide realistic estimates of marine
plastics, provided that their assessment is also accompanied by the re-
finement of sampling methodologies and the standardization of size
definitions.
Question 2: do we know all the sources of plastics that end into the
sea?
Marine plastic debris originates from the indiscriminate disposal of
waste materials that are directly or indirectly transferred to the sea
(Law, 2017). Sources of plastic pollution are numerous and diverse, and
generally divided into two large categories: ocean- and land-based
plastics, with land-based debris considered as the major one (Sheavly
and Register, 2007). Land-based plastic debris is generally of urban and
industrial origin, and can reach the sea through several ways, like
rivers, storm water runoff, wastewater discharges or litter dumping by
beach users (Corcoran et al., 2009). For example, Lebreton et al. (2017)
estimated that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste
currently enter the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of
emissions occurring between May and October. In particular, they
found that the top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account
for 67% of the global total. Moreover, Willis et al. (2017) showed that
significant sources of plastic debris include direct deposition by
beachgoers, transport from surrounding areas via storm water drains
and coastal runoff, and onshore transport from the marine system.
While wastewater treatment plants can trap macroplastics and some
small plastic debris within oxidation ponds or sewage sludge, a great
aliquot of microplastics can pass through such filtration systems in case
of lack of advanced final-stage wastewater treatment technologies
(Kalčíková et al., 2017; Talvitie et al., 2017; Li et al., 2018). Plastic
debris from terrestrial sources amounts to c. 80% of plastics released
into the sea (Geyer et al., 2017). Such plastics include primary micro-
plastics originated from e.g. facial-cleansers, cosmetics, air-blasting, or
leachates from waste dumps, but also granules and small resin pellets,
known as “nibs”, are another significant source of land-based plastic
debris (Fendall and Sewell, 2009; Browne et al., 2011; Napper et al.,
2015). In particular, resin pellets are ubiquitous items that can be de-
tected in all marine environments worldwide, even around oceanic is-
lands without local plastic manufacturing industries (Ivar do Sul et al.,
2009). With about half the world’s population living within 100 km
from the coast, rivers and wastewater systems act as the main routes for
land-based plastic debris to enter the sea (Browne et al., 2010). Extreme
G. Bonanno, M. Orlando-Bonaca
weather events (e.g. flooding, hurricanes) can also intensify the transfer
of this debris from land to sea (Barnes et al., 2009).
Ocean-based plastic debris results from intentionally or unin-
tentionally released materials from vessels and offshore oil platforms
(Ivar do Sul and Costa, 2014). Vessels are historical contributors to
marine debris: during the 1970s, estimates showed that commercial
fishing fleets dumped globally over 23,000 tons of plastic packaging
materials (Pruter, 1987). Despite several efforts to ban marine vessels
from disposing plastic waste, insufficient enforcement and education
has resulted in commercial ships being one of the main sources of
marine-based plastic debris (Lozano and Mouat, 2009). Costal en-
vironments are particularly subjected to plastic pollution because they
receive plastic debris from both terrestrial and marine sources: terres-
trial sources are abundant near urban areas, tourist locations and es-
tuaries, whereas marine debris can reach coast waters through the
system of currents (Ryan et al., 2009). Although we know the main
physical sources of plastics that enter the sea, we still lack sufficient
understanding of the sources of plastic debris at management scales, e.g.
catchments, urban areas (Vegter et al., 2014). By focused on the critical
steps of the disposal chain that cause the release of plastic debris into
the environment, managers can contribute significantly to implement
tailored measures of mitigation with consequent effective and enduring
results. For a successful reduction of plastic inputs into the sea, man-
agers should act at three main levels: technological, by promoting the
innovation of new systems for plastic waste treatment; managerial, by
improving the efficiency of the recycle chain; educational (last but not
least), by raising public awareness about eco-friendly uses of everyday
plastic items.
Question 3: which categories of plastics reach the sea?
Marine plastic debris includes items of different orders of magnitude
in size, and once in the sea, plastics can further degrade and fragment
into smaller pieces (Andrady, 2011). Historically, researchers have fo-
cused on large items called generically “macroplastics” (e.g. fishing
rods, bottles) (Law, 2017). However, in the last decade, the focus has
shifted on the so-called “microplastics”, which include tiny fragments,
fibers and granules (Clark et al., 2016). Microplastics are generally
considered as those particles with grain size <5 mm (Amaral-Zettler
et al., 2015; Lebreton et al., 2017; Willis et al., 2017), however, several
authors proposed different range-sizes, like <10 mm (Graham and
Thompson et al., 2009), 2–6 mm (Derraik, 2002), <2 mm (Ryan et al.,
2009), and <1 mm (Claessens et al., 2011). These contaminants are
widespread and ubiquitous in the marine environment, and can cause
adverse effects on ecosystems and their biota (Rands et al., 2010;
Lusher et al., 2015). Microplastics can be defined either as “primary
microplastics” if manufactured directly, or as “secondary microplastics”
if derived from the fragmentation and long-term degradation of larger
plastics (Barnes et al., 2009; Cole et al., 2011). Secondary, microplastics
may degrade to even smaller pieces called nanoplastics, whose tiniest
particles ever found were 1.60 μm in diameter (Galgani et al., 2010).
Bioplastics are another emergent category of marine debris, commonly
seen as an eco-friendly replacement of traditional plastics (Cole et al.,
2011). However, bioplastics too can be a source of microplastics. Bio-
degradable plastics, indeed, have generally a synthetic component (e.g.
polymers) that requires long times of decomposition, and a natural
component (e.g. starch) that degrades more easily but only under fa-
vourable conditions, e.g. hot, humid and aerated (O’Brine and
Thompson, 2010). In relatively cold marine waters, the degradable part
of bioplastics will decompose in far longer times than usual, increasing
the probability of plastics to be fouled and thus diminishing UV per-
meation on which degradation processes depend (Roy et al., 2011). The
absence of impact on the sea due to bioplastics is thus a false myth.
Although microplastics are nowadays recognized as a real threat to the
marine environment worldwide, the lack of an official categorization is
problematic for any effective action of mitigation and management. A
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Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154
standardized nomenclature of microplastics would be fundamental to
compare data collected from different areas and with different sampling
methods. An urgent need is also to define the category of nanoplastics,
which may act as the most harmful plastics at the lower levels of marine
food webs (Koelmans et al., 2015; Andrady, 2017). A standardized
nomenclature of marine plastics should rely on the main variables that
characterize marine plastic debris, in particular size, origin, chemical
composition and degradability rate.
Question 4: what is the fate of plastics released into the sea?
Plastic debris is nowadays detected in any marine environment
worldwide (GESAMP, 2015; Jambeck et al., 2015). Transported by
marine currents, winds, river outflows and drifts (Martinez et al.,
2009), plastic debris can travel across global distances, from coastal
zones to remote and uncontaminated territories such as oceanic islands,
polar regions and marine depths (Ivar do Sul et al., 2013; Obbard et al.,
2014). Different processes, which depend mainly on size, shape and
density of plastics, can carry marine plastic debris away (Cózar et al.
2014; Eriksen et al. 2014). Plastics can be positively buoyant, neutrally
buoyant or negatively buoyant. Positively buoyant plastics accumulate
near the sea surface, whereas negatively buoyant plastics sink to
seabed, consequently, plastic debris can be found throughout the water
column (Van Cauwenberghe et al., 2013). There is also evidence that
the attachment of fouling organisms (e.g. algae, invertebrates) can
cause buoyant plastics to sink (Fazey and Ryan, 2016; Gündoğdu et al.,
2017). Although marine plastics are ubiquitous, they are mainly con-
centrated in coastal areas and in mid-ocean “gyres”, defined as centres
of vast anti-cyclonic, sub-tropical ocean currents (Martinez et al.,
2009). The fate of these plastics is relatively unknown, and various
studies hypothesize that in most cases plastics sink due to biofouling,
break into smaller fragments and/or are ingested by marine biota
(Kaiser, 2010; Law et al., 2010; Gall and Thompson, 2015). Increasing
research is also focused on developing ocean circulation models to
explain the transport of marine plastic debris (Lebreton et al., 2012;
Potemra, 2012; Carson et al., 2013).
Although its consequence is still not clear, plastic accumulation in
sediments is widespread (Van Cauwenberghe et al., 2013). According to
Wright et al. (2013), microplastics at environmentally 5% weight/
weight concentrations can alter the vital processes of sediment-dwelling
biota. In shallow marine environments, plastics that are accumulated in
sediments may be resuspended under the action of currents, tides or
waves, and consequently scattered within the water column (Lattin
et al., 2004). In the oceanic depths, sediments can act as a permanent
sink of plastics that may be either resuspended within the water column
or transported along the continental slopes (Clark et al., 2016). De-
position of plastics in sediments is influenced by biological and physic-
chemical mechanisms that include colonization by organisms, ad-
herence to phytoplankton and mixing with organic debris (Kiørboe,
2011; Zettler et al., 2013). Submarine canyons, acting as preferential
conduits, may favour downwelling flows that facilitate the permanence
of plastics in particular locations (Canals et al., 2013). Plastics are also
likely influenced by advection and circulation patterns, which may
explain the accumulation of these plastics in the sea depths, and the
role of marine sediments as a principal sink of these particles (Woodall
et al., 2014). In particular, plastics can be up to four orders of magni-
tude more abundant in seabed sediments compared to superficial wa-
ters, thus supporting further evidence for the existence of an un-
quantified sink of plastics (Ramirez-Llodra et al., 2013; Tubau et al.,
2015). Also ecological processes, acting together with physical trans-
port phenomena, can play a prominent role in carrying plastics away
from superficial waters to sea depths, with implications both for the fate
of marine plastic debris, and for the contamination of sea food chains
(Clark et al., 2016). In particular, the interactions between plastics and
marine organisms (e.g. through ingestion and defecation) may influence
significantly the transport of plastic debris in the sea (Long et al., 2015;
G. Bonanno, M. Orlando-Bonaca
Turner, 2015; Cole et al., 2016). Interaction frequency and the con-
sequent fate of plastics depend on the species traits. For example, in
zooplankton this frequency is determined by organism size rather than
plastic size, species feeding way, and prey ingestion rate (Litchman
et al., 2013). The fate of marine plastics is overall elusive and several
knowledge gaps persist about the specific importance of the various
processes that drive the spatial distribution and long-term fate of
marine plastics (Clark et al., 2016). If, on the one hand, there is suffi-
cient scientific evidence that seafloor sediments act as a repository of
large quantities of plastic debris, on the other hand, cost and difficulties
of sampling make scientists unable to quantify this mass of plastics and
to understand properly which transport mechanisms caused this accu-
mulation (Claessens et al., 2011; Kiessling et al., 2015). Moreover,
disparity in size definitions and lack of standardized sampling protocols
affect the possibility to compare effectively quantitative data to identify
the spatial and temporal patterns of marine plastics. Little is known
about the role of physical properties (e.g. weight, shape) in causing
plastics to float or be air-driven, and to persist in the surface waters
before sinking (Vegter et al., 2014). Future studies should also shed
further light on the role of plastics-biota interactions in redistributing
plastic debris in the marine environment.
Question 5: what are the ecological effects of plastics on the sea?
The impacts of plastics in the sea may have numerous repercussions
that include: threat to business activities (e.g. bathing tourism, fishing,
aquaculture) (Sivan, 2011); biodiversity loss due to injury and death of
marine wildlife (e.g., birds, fish, reptiles), resulting from entanglement
or ingestion (Sutherland et al., 2010); transport to new habitats of non-
native species (e.g. algae, invertebrates) attached to floating plastic
fragments (Barnes, 2002); and seabed smothering with consequent gas-
exchange obstruction due to sinking plastics (Moore, 2008). Plastic
debris, especially microplastics with their high surface area/volume
ratio, is highly contaminable by waterborne-pollutants such as aqueous
metals, organic pollutants and endocrine disrupting chemicals (Teuten
et al., 2009; Ashton et al., 2010). According to recent estimates from the
United Nations Environment Programme, plastic debris causes a global
economic damage of 13 billion dollars annually to marine ecosystems
(UNEP, 2016). Little attention was dedicated to the impact of plastics
on marine habitats compared to the impact on organisms (Votier et al.,
2011; Lavers et al., 2014). In intertidal habitats, the concentration of
plastics can alter important physical and chemical processes (e.g. light
and oxygen availability, temperature oscillation), resulting in variations
of macro- and meiobenthic communities and changes in feeding pat-
terns (Goldberg, 1997; Aloy et al., 2011). The accumulation of plastics
in the coastal areas can alter the physical and chemical properties of the
beach sediments (e.g. increase in permeability and reduction in heat
absorbance), with effects on sex-determination in some reptiles and
desiccation in sediment-dwelling organisms (Carson et al., 2011).
Massive fouling can cause the loss of fundamental biogenic habitats,
whose destruction may have a domino effect on large-scale ecosystem
processes (Smith, 2012). Coral reef habitats showed a decline due to
several factors, e.g. fouling caused by entangled fishing lines, abrasion,
and direct suffocation (Richards and Beger, 2011). However, few stu-
dies have so far investigated the ecological effects of plastics on many
other marine habitats, especially those where human access is limited
(e.g. polar regions, deep-sea zones) (Bergmann et al., 2017; Waller
et al., 2017). Regarding the impact of plastics at a population level,
several questions are still open such as long-term survival, fecundity,
birth and mortality rates, and cause-and-effect links between plastic
debris and harmful consequences (van der Werf and Young, 2011).
Quantifying population-scale impact requires thus further research,
with a particular focus on those traits determining growth rates and
reproduction. Another field of research to explore is the transport of
non-native species to new marine environments on floating plastic
debris (Zettler et al., 2013). Different taxonomical groups were
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Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154
observed on floating plastic debris (e.g. algae, invertebrates) amounting
to a total of c. 270 species (CBD, 2012), but most authors agree that this
phenomenon is underestimated for the scarce number of observations
and studies (Gall and Thompson, 2015; Gündoğdu et al., 2017).
Overall, current scientific knowledge is not sufficient to quantify the
ecological impact of plastics released into the sea. Investigating the
effects of plastic debris on the different marine habitats is among future
priorities. Moreover, quantifying the magnitude of the impact at po-
pulation level would increase the effectiveness of management mea-
sures. The impact of climate change on marine ecosystems is also a top
area of research, but also the effects of climate change on marine plastic
debris have to be properly studied.
Question 6: what do we know about the transfer of plastics across
marine trophic levels?
Given their small size, microplastics are potentially bioavailable to
marine organisms across the whole food web (Murray and Cowie,
2011). Either through direct ingestion or via trophic transfer, micro-
plastics have been detected throughout the food chain, up to com-
mercial seafood like European mussels and oysters (Setälä et al., 2014;
Rochman et al., 2015). In particular, ingestion of microplastics has been
documented from filter-feeding invertebrates to fishes, seabirds and
marine mammals (Choy and Drazen, 2013; Tanaka et al., 2013; Wright
et al., 2013). Plankton and microplastics <333 μm can be found in
marine environments, and even smaller plastic particles (<100 μm)
were detected in sediments, implying that the exposure to plastic debris
can occur at the lowest levels of marine food webs (Browne et al.,
2011). Several studies, indeed, found evidence that marine in-
vertebrates can ingest microplastics (Wegner et al., 2012), and recent
laboratory studies confirmed the capacity of zooplankton to ingest
plastic particles (Cole et al., 2013). Other studies showed also the
biological transfer of plastics from mollusks to crustaceans (Farrell and
Nelson, 2013). Current research found plastic concentrations in the
stomach of three different large Mediterranean fish (Xiphias gladius,
Thunnus thynnus, Thunnus alalunga), showing evidence of plastic in-
gestion by top marine predators (Romeo et al., 2015). Once ingested,
microplastics can release plasticizer and adsorbed pollutants, thus in-
troducing toxic chemicals in the food web, whose consequences in
terms of biomagnification are still largely unknown (Teuten et al.,
2009). The massive presence of plastics in the sea is undoubtedly af-
fecting food webs through ingestion and bioaccumulation, with in-
evitable repercussions on ecosystem processes yet to be clarified.
However, there are still numerous knowledge gaps that hinder under-
standing to what extent plastic transfer occurs across the marine food
web, and its associated ecological impact. A priority line of research is
to better understand the impact of plastics on the lowest levels of the
trophic chain, e.g. zooplankton and planktivorous species (Wright et al.,
2013; Setälä et al. 2014). Current research is not able to confirm
whether plastics detected in marine organisms have been directly in-
gested from the water column or indirectly accumulated from eating
other species. Moreover, it is still unclear whether the consumption of
plastics can be regularly moved up the food chain, and whether con-
taminants adhered to plastics would disassociate after ingestion
(Thompson et al., 2004; Cole et al., 2011). To date, most studies focused
on the transfer of plastics from one trophic level to the next, and on the
accumulation of plastics in single species. However, to understand ex-
haustively the impact of plastics on the marine food chain, future stu-
dies should investigate the biological transfer of plastics across all
trophic levels, from the lowest ones to the top consumers. This will shed
further light on the biomagnification rate.
Question 7: to what extent are plastics harmful to marine life?
The presence of plastic particles in marine organisms is nowadays
commonplace (Goldstein and Goodwin, 2013; Wilcox et al., 2015).
G. Bonanno, M. Orlando-Bonaca
Plastics can affect marine wildlife mainly through entanglement and
ingestion (Derraik, 2002; Boerger et al., 2010). While macroplastics
cause generally entanglement, microplastics are mainly responsible for
ingestion in most marine species (Moore, 2008; Schuyler et al., 2012).
The adverse effects of plastics are documented at all trophic levels, from
zooplankton (Cole et al., 2013), to invertebrates (Chiappone et al.,
2005), mammals (Page et al., 2004), fish (Ramos et al., 2012; Dantas
et al., 2013), seabirds (van Franeker et al., 2011), seaturtles (Lazar and
Gračan, 2011; Schuyler et al., 2014), and whales (Jacobsen et al.,
2010). Plastic ingestion can cause several damages such as transfer of
toxicants, impaired food intake, gut impaction and gut perforation
(Gray et al., 2012; Müller et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2013). Plastic
ingestion may occur voluntarily when organisms confuse their prey, or
may result from eating other organisms that bioaccumulated plastic in
their tissues (Davison and Asch, 2011; Ramos et al., 2012). Although
microplastics may prove to be lethal once ingested (Wright et al.,
2013), most marine organisms can eject unwanted materials, with no
harm, through defecation (Thompson et al., 2004; Andrady, 2011).
There is also evidence that ingested plastics can be bioaccumulated in
tissues through the digestive tract via translocation (Browne et al.,
2008). After the ingestion of microplastics, marine organisms may be
exposed to leached additives, which can alter several biological pro-
cesses (e.g. endocrine disruption) with consequences on e.g. reproduc-
tion, growth rate and mobility (Talsness et al., 2009; Lithner et al.,
2011). Additives from microplastics, if ingested, may cause negative
biological effects but relatively little is known about the chronic effects
of these additives in case of long-term exposures to marine biota
(Oehlmann et al., 2009). Regarding the assessment of the spatial risk of
plastic ingestion, several studies found surprising results according to
which the greatest expected impact on marine organisms was detected
in areas not considered as the major oceanic accumulation zones of
plastic debris (van Sebille et al., 2015). Further investigation is thus
required to identify interaction hotspots between marine plastics and
wildlife.
Although plastics are nowadays recognized as a real threat to
marine wildlife at a global level (UNEP, 2016), we are still unable to
quantify their real impact on marine organisms. Especially micro-
plastics, due to their small size and widespread distribution, have the
potential to be ingested by a great number of marine organisms
(Thompson et al., 2009), but the majority of studies were conducted in
the laboratory and analyzing plastic ingestion in nature is technically
and methodologically challenging (Browne et al., 2008). The ever-in-
creasing release of plastic waste implies that also the number of affected
species will rise progressively. However, current studies are not suffi-
cient to provide an exhaustive picture of the number of marine species
affected by plastics, either because several studies are limited to some
specific taxonomic groups (like fish and crustaceans), or because most
field analyses were conducted in areas easily accessible like costal zones
rather than polar regions. To date, thus, rates of entanglement and in-
gestion are unknown for marine wildlife. Moreover, reliable estimates
of mortality rate due to entanglement and/or ingestion by marine biota
are lacking, but according to the current data, entanglement or inges-
tion of plastics cause sub-lethal effects at worst (Clark et al., 2016).
Most studies investigated the impact of plastic on single species, thus,
limited conclusions can be drawn on the impact of plastics at level of
community or population (Gilman et al., 2006). Future research should
provide realistic estimates of the impact of plastics on marine life by
combining spatial distribution models of marine plastics with biogeo-
graphical ranges, feeding patterns and physiological responses to in-
gestion by marine organisms.
Question 8: are there demonstrated harmful effects on human
health due to marine plastics?
The majority of studies agree that plastics in the marine environ-
ment may affect human health through the consumption of plastic-
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Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154
ingesting seafood (Galloway, 2015). Several studies, indeed, found
significant concentrations of plastic materials in numerous organisms of
commercial importance and commonly consumed by the people such as
field-caught brown shrimps (Crangon crangon) and farmed bivalves (De
Witte et al., 2014; Van Cauwenberghe and Janssen, 2014). The content
of plastic material seems nowadays commonplace in a significant per-
centage of marine organisms, as found for instance by Avio et al. (2015)
in the central-northern Adriatic Sea, where 28% of the analyzed or-
ganisms of commercial interest contained plastic materials in their
gastrointestinal tract. Similarly, Romeo et al. (2015) found plastic
debris in the range of 12.5–32.4% in the stomach of three greatly
commercial Mediterranean fish. Current research confirmed in labora-
tory experiments that commercial seafood could potentially ingest and
bioaccumulate significant levels of plastic substances (Farrell and
Nelson, 2013; Rochman et al., 2015), but analyses in the field are far
scarcer, and it is not recommendable to jump to conclusions on the
capacity of plastic ingestion by wild marine organisms only on the basis
of laboratory experiments under controlled conditions (Dehaut et al.,
2016). However, laboratory experiments provided important results
showing evidence that ingestion, accumulation and trophic transfer of
plastics are a real risk for marine organisms, from zooplankton to top
consumers, including human beings. The presence of microplastics in
commercial sea salts is also another matter of increasing concern (Yang
et al., 2015; Iñiguez et al., 2017; Karami et al., 2017). Overall, there is
not yet enough scientific evidence of human health lethally or seriously
affected by marine food contaminated by plastics, and to date, the
presence of plastics has been investigated only in a tiny fraction of
edible marine organisms (Li et al., 2015; Karami et al., 2018). Future
research should also focus on setting legal limits of plastic concentra-
tions in the tissue of marine organisms destined to human consumption
(EFSA, 2016). According to the current knowledge, we are unable to
estimate the real magnitude of the risk posed to human health by
plastic-contaminated seafood (Rist et al., 2018; Van der Fels-Klerx et al.,
2018). A thought-provoking study entitled “Are we eating plastic-in-
gesting fish?” (Miranda and Carvalho-Souza, 2016), answered “yes” to
this question. Yes, maybe we are eating plastics from contaminated
seafood, but still not enough to feel their harmful effects on our health.
Let us do something useful to prevent negative consequences before
they become measurable.
Question 9: Is the presence of plastics underreported for some
seas?
Plastics have a pervasive nature that allows them to reach any
marine environment, from tropical to polar seas (Derraik, 2002; Ryan
et al., 2009; Barnes et al., 2010). Driven by marine currents, winds and
drift, plastic debris can be transported across huge distances, both su-
perficially from the coast to mid-oceans, and vertically down to the
deep seabed (Barnes et al., 2009). The distribution of plastics has been
less documented in polar regions (Waller et al., 2017) but much more
reported for several other seas such as Northeast Atlantic (Lusher et al.,
2014), Northeast Pacific (Doyle et al., 2011), Mediterranean (Collignon
et al., 2014; Faure et al., 2015), Australian coast (Reisser et al., 2013),
and South Korea coast (Song et al., 2014). However, while plastic debris
can be found everywhere in the sea, the accumulation of plastics is
heterogeneous and concentrated mainly along coastal areas and within
mid-ocean gyres (Martinez et al., 2009). Moreover, floating plastic
items are the most documented category of marine plastics, whereas
microplastics are still undersampled for various reasons such as tech-
nical limits and lack of standardized definitions (van Sebille et al.,
2015). Expect polar seas, the presence of plastics is evenly reported for
the main seas, but what is instead underreported for all seas is the
presence of microplastics compared to floating macroplastics. In par-
ticular, smaller microplastics are often neglected in most monitoring
programs, and the availability of data is especially poor in regions of
high biological productivity (Clark et al., 2016). This reduces the
G. Bonanno, M. Orlando-Bonaca
possibility to make reliable quantitative estimates of the global abun-
dance of marine plastics. The current state of knowledge does not allow
drawing a global map showing the different degree of plastic pollution
in the different seas. This is mainly due to the fact that the average
concentrations (items/m3) of plastics is broadly known for the world’s
seas but not enough in detail to have an exhaustive and precise picture
of the plastic pollution on a global scale. In other words, we are still
unable to say with certainty if a given sea is more polluted than another
in terms of plastic debris. For a complete picture of the degree of global
plastic pollution, regular and widespread monitoring activities should
rely on standardized definitions of plastic categories, data normal-
ization and international standardized sampling methodologies.
Question 10: are current regulations able to tackle marine
pollution due to plastics?
Plastics are nowadays recognized as hazardous waste increasingly
entering the marine environment (Rochman et al., 2013; Andrady,
2017). This has pushed several governmental initiatives at national and
international levels to conceive directives and regulations able to cope
with the issue of marine plastics. The international attention to the
global risk of marine plastics can be seen, for example, in the inclusion
of the agenda of the G7 summit Strategic Development Goals (SDG
target 14.1), which aim to reduce all kinds of marine pollutants (Clark
et al., 2016). Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme
has targeted the issue of marine plastics by promoting appropriate
legislation, waste management and public awareness (UNEP, 2016).
The United Nations have also set an advisory body on prevention, mi-
tigation and control of the impact of marine pollutants, called GESAMP
(Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental
Protection). The GESAMP, in particular, suggested the need for “iden-
tifying the main sources and categories of plastics entering the ocean”.
The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, 2008/56/
EC) included marine plastic debris in the Descriptor 10 (Marine Litter),
which is one of the 11 descriptors that have to be evaluated in order to
achieve the good environmental status. The European Union re-
commended also marine mammals be monitored for the composition
and quantity of plastic debris ingested (Amaral-Zettler et al., 2015).
Regulations on marine plastic waste should rank plastics per different
risk categories, and provide quality standards relying on tolerable limits
of plastic concentrations in the sea. Overall, although current legisla-
tion on the issue of marine plastics is characterized by strict regulations,
the amount of plastic debris in the sea keeps increasing worldwide. This
trend suggests that environmental legislation on plastics should focus
mainly on proactive measures of mitigation. Improving plastic waste
management on land can effectively reduce the release of plastics into
the sea. This implies improving both the plastic waste disposal and the
recycle chain. In other words, plastic waste must be blocked and ap-
propriately disposed of properly before entering the sea. There is no
point in only stopping (or decreasing) the use of plastics or developing
substitute products. What is really needed is a smart disposal of plastic
items. The increasing public awareness worldwide is a hope for con-
crete political actions aiming at dealing with marine plastics.
Conclusions
This analysis showed that, despite to a different extent, all ten
questions do not have exhaustive and satisfactory answers. Although
scientists, policymakers and public opinion consider plastics as a real
threat to the marine environment, basic knowledge gaps still persist and
hinder making progress to tackle this worldwide issue. The first step is
to identify the priority topics on marine plastics that need further in-
vestigation. This study, in particular, found that some of the most cri-
tical aspects include providing standard definitions of the different
kinds of plastics, developing standardized methods of sampling, and
investigating the impact of plastics on a population and community
151
Environmental Science and Policy 85 (2018) 146–154
level. We found that a top priority for future studies is also to in-
vestigate the current poor knowledge on the transfer of plastic materials
across marine trophic webs. Public opinion is aware of the plastic issue,
environmental legislation provides strict measures of mitigation and
control, and scientific community is increasingly producing research on
marine plastics. Despite this, we do not have exact estimates of plastic
pollution but we know for sure that the release of plastics into the sea is
ever increasing. The presence of plastics in the sea is an issue that can
be avoided only if tackled at the root, that is to say, all efforts should be
made to avoid plastics to enter the sea. Currently, there are no sig-
nificant documented cases of human health affected by the consump-
tion of plastic-contaminated marine organisms. However, we do not
know whether the day when these impacts are proved is near or far, but
if we do not act properly, one thing is certain: that day will come soon.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the Slovenian
Research Agency (research core funding No. P1-0237). This study was
also supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and
Research, and by EcoStat Srl – Spin-off of Catania University (Italy).
The authors wish to thank all the people involved in data collection,
processing and proof reading. Thanks are due also to the anonymous
reviewer for his constructive comments and suggestions, which helped
us to improve the manuscript.
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