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Exploring Scientific Discourse on Marine Litter in Europe: Review of Sources, Causes and Solutions
Summary
This systematic review examines the scientific discussion around marine plastic litter in Europe, focusing on its sources, causes, and potential solutions. It identifies four main narratives in the research and calls for more interdisciplinary work to ensure solutions are sustainable and avoid greenwashing. The review highlights that addressing ocean plastic pollution requires understanding both the science and the social factors driving it.
Marine litter is a transboundary environmental issue that affects all the world’s oceans. Marine litter research is a young discipline but one that has exploded during the last five years. However, the increased knowledge of sources and underlying causes to marine litter, as well as knowledge regarding solutions, lack systematic review and synthesis. This study reviews the scientific discourses around plastic marine litter in Europe, and more specifically, in Norway and Denmark, and explores emerging discourse coalitions. Four main thematic storylines on the source-cause-solution causal relationship, as well as two emerging storylines within marine litter research, are found. This study concludes that in order to secure sustainability of solutions and to avoid risk transformation and greenwashing, more interdisciplinary research, including life cycle assessment and investigations of scientific and societal discourses, is needed.
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