A Bibliometric Analysis of Plastic Pollution Research: Mapping the Structure of Influential Research Networks and its Knowledge Gaps

Abstract Plastic pollution has rapidly escalated into a global environmental challenge. This study aims to map the intellectual structure of highly influential plastic pollution research and examine the integration of social dimensions research into its networks. We use a systematic bibliometric analysis of high-impact plastic pollution research to map the field’s intellectual structure. From an initial corpus of 107,873 records (1980–2025), we analyse the top 1% most-cited papers and the articles they reference, constructing journal co-citation and keyword co-occurrence networks spanning 538 journals and 114,903 articles. The co-citation network reveals three dominant research communities oriented towards ecosystem impacts, human health implications, and technical-engineering and materials science. Across these communities, microplastics function as the central organising concept, linking work on toxicity, exposure pathways, and waste management, and reflecting the rapid growth of microplastics research over the last decade. In contrast, keywords related to social dimensions—such as governance, justice, and political-economic actors—occupy peripheral network positions, indicating that social drivers of plastic production and consumption are weakly integrated into the dominant research published in the field. Overall, influential plastic pollution research remains dominated by downstream impact assessment and techno-managerial responses, suggesting that stronger integration of upstream social drivers is needed to inform transformative responses to the plastics crisis.