Wedges: A new way to think about the plastic litter challenge

Plastic litter is a complex issue due to many disparate sources, the diverse pathways and a plethora of interacting factors. There is no one solution that will solve this rapidly escalating problem, rather a portfolio of... [ view full abstract ]

Plastic litter is a complex issue due to many disparate sources, the diverse pathways and a plethora of interacting factors. There is no one solution that will solve this rapidly escalating problem, rather a portfolio of interventions is required across regions. We need to determine which intervention might be most successful and which combination of strategies could overlap and interact. This could be achieved by considering the potential physical reduction in the amount of marine litter and/or the risk of it, as well as the political/ social will and resource availability to conduct the intervention for each strategy. Mapping these together in a framework will provide an actionable set of interventions and strategies, as well as suggesting how litter accumulations/ outputs could change, thus providing a target against which success can be measured. In this presentation we provide the skeleton of the framework and highlight the advantages of this joined-up approach.