Microplastics in the environment: Much ado about nothing? A debate
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecosystem Science, Science Policy, Ecotoxicology, Environmental Contamination and Remediation, Environmental Impacts
- Keywords
- Plastic pollution, Microplastics, microplastic, synthetic polymers
- Copyright
- © 2018 Backhaus et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Microplastics in the environment: Much ado about nothing? A debate. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26507v3 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26507v3
Abstract
This manuscript documents a debate between the two authors on the issue of microplastics in the environment. It was sparked by a recent viewpoint article published by G. A. Burton in Environmental Science and Technology (http://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b05463) and started as a Twitter debate. To expand, we decided to continue our conversation publishing 1000 word texts on peerJ and responding to each other in roughly two-week intervals.
Currently, the text contains the following:
1) An introduction, which sets the scene for the article
2) Martin's kick-off statement, dated Feb. 27, 2018
3) Thomas' opening statement, dated March 18, 2018
Martin is currently preparing his rebuttal.
Author Comment
This version of the preprint includes Thomas' first statement. It now consists of: the introduction/background, opening statement from Martin, opening statement from Thomas.