THE STORY OF PLASTIC POLLUTION: From the Distant Ocean Gyres to the Global Policy Stage

Today, the media is inundated with stories about plastic contamination in our global ocean. Over the last decade, the amount of research about and attention to the topic have elevated plastic pollution to the global stage-and set priorities for research and policy. Though the story of plastic pollution, big and small, began decades ago in remote central ocean gyres, we now know that plastic debris is ubiquitous across all ocean basins, ecosystems, habitats, and food webs-including in seafood and sea salt. In addition to work on understanding contamination, researchers have expanded their breadth of questioning toward the sources, fates, transformations, and effects of plastic pollution. A deeper understanding has revealed the many ways in which plastic debris interacts with planetary cycles and affects physical and biological processes. An expanding scientific field has paralleled a growing policy movement that spans multiple levels of government from municipal to international. As we continue to conduct research to better understand plastics in our ocean, the questions are no longer about whether there is plastic pollution, but instead: (1) what are the processes and extent to which plastic debris affects global change? (2) will we use science to inform solutions? and (3) are we willing to do the hard work to solve the problem of plastic pollution?