Microplastics in the environment: Much ado about nothing? A debate

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1 Department for Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
2 Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.26507v6
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Ecosystem Science, Science Policy, Ecotoxicology, Environmental Contamination and Remediation, Environmental Impacts
Keywords
Plastic pollution, Microplastics, microplastic, synthetic polymers, environmental risk assessment, anthropocene, precautionary principle
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
Backhaus T, Wagner M. 2018. Microplastics in the environment: Much ado about nothing? A debate. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26507v6

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 “Soul-searching on microplastics: Lost in translation, prioritization and communication?”, dated Feb. 27, 2018

3) Thomas' opening statement “A genuine research topic, but let’s avoid hyperboles”, dated March 18, 2018

4) Martin’s rebuttal “Moving forward: What are the risks of microplastics?”, dated April 18, 2018

5) Thomas’ rebuttal “We need to do a classical risk assessment, but we can’t stop there”, dated May 18, 2018

6) Final statement of both authors, dated July 12, 2018

Author Comment

We have added our final statements (written independent).

Supplemental Information

Supporting Information to version 4, contains one additional figure

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.26507v6/supp-1