Plastics without (Arctic) borders

This week saw one of the largest gatherings of politicians, scientists, civil society, students, journalists and artists in the Arctic at the annual Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø, northern Norway. 

One of the main conference themes was “Plastics in the Ocean”. More than 40 presentations, posters and side events focused on the topic, reflecting the explosion of interest and enormous amount of new research on the geographic location, abundance, transport routes, and ecological impact of plastics of all sizes in the Arctic environment.

The issue of marine litter is hugely complex, and while it is easy to get our heads buried in all the new science, ultimately tackling the problem of plastics in the oceans means reducing the sources from land and sea. The right information is needed to assess and measure the progress of any actions aimed at reducing and removing what flows into the oceans. This work requires sound, reliable information. Databases are necessary tools to assemble, store and analyse all this information. 

These considerations were at the heart of an event at Arctic Frontiers, organised by GRID-Arendal, the Norwegian Centre for Oil Spill Response and Marine Environment and the University of the Arctic (UArctic). This discussion explored questions such as

• What type of data is needed to lead to informed management policies?
• What can we learn from existing initiatives which collect and store litter data?
• What can we learn from previous experiences on measuring and gathering data within the Arctic or from other regions for other environmental monitoring?

Bart Koelmans of Wageningen University in the Netherlands said it’s impossible to eliminate plastics from the oceans, at least in the near term. For that reason, Koelmans emphasized the importance of adopting a risk assessment framework to understand, monitor and keep current microplastic levels at “acceptable levels” – levels that do not negatively impact marine life, livelihoods and humans. (Koelmans is Chair of Science Advice for Policy by European Academies which recently released a new report on microplastics.) 

Mine Tekman of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany talked about the experiences from Litterbase, an online database which compiles existing information on litter distribution and biological impacts, based on peer-reviewed scientific literature. One major challenge encountered when building such a database, she said, was the lack of standardized variables, methods and units to measure the distribution, abundance and composition of plastics. 

These two keynote speeches were followed by a panel discussion during which a number of topics were raised, including

• The importance of international cooperation to monitor plastics, putting to good use the past and present experience gained in the Arctic Council through the monitoring of Persistent Organic Pollutants. 
• Researchers should be rewarded not only for writing papers in high profile journals but also for building databases. In this way, data gathering would be far more successful and sustainable through strong ownership from local communities across the Arctic. 
• Keep things as simple and efficient as possible when it comes to monitoring indicators and databases.

Ann-Helen Ernstsen, Director of the Norwegian Centre for Oil Spill Response and Marine Environment, concluded the side event. She noted that all panelists emphasized the importance of cooperation at the local, national and international levels. Furthermore, Ernstsen said there was widespread agreement about the need to keep things as smart but also as simple as possible when it comes to data collection.