image: Discarded plastic food packaging lies among seaweed and other materials on a coastal beach. Plastic waste reaching shorelines can persist, weather and fragment into smaller particles, extending its environmental impacts beyond visible litter.
Credit: Changchao Li / The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Plastic pollution is often framed as a waste problem, but a paper published in National Science Review argues that this view is too narrow. Plastics move through land, water and air, change as they weather, release and transport chemicals, and provide new habitats for microorganisms. Their consequences include harm to wildlife, potential risks to human health, and disruptions of climate-relevant processes and carbon and nitrogen cycling. The paper connects this evidence with strategies spanning the entire plastics life cycle, from production and product design to reuse, recycling, waste treatment, cleanup, and global governance.
The paper was led by Professor Guibing Zhu and Professor Yong-Guan Zhu of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, with researchers from institutions in China, Norway, and Germany. To take stock of a rapidly expanding field, the team examined 36,023 publications and used semantic analysis to map four closely connected areas of research: the occurrence and fate of plastics, their impacts, life-cycle mitigation, and the barriers that still impede effective action.
The paper notes that rivers, runoff, ocean currents, wind, and living organisms can move plastic debris between ecosystems, while sunlight, abrasion and biological activity fragment it into smaller particles. The authors describe three interacting pathways of harm. Plastic debris can physically alter habitats and injure wildlife through ingestion and entanglement. Plastics can also release additives and other hazardous chemicals. Once in the environment, their surfaces are colonized by microbial communities forming a unique microecosystem known as the plastisphere, which can contribute to the spread and proliferation of pathogens and antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms.
The paper also examines what remains uncertain. Microplastics and nanoplastics have been reported in human tissues and biological samples, but the authors stress that stronger evidence is needed to connect exposure pathways and internal doses with biological mechanisms and long-term health outcomes. They also show that plastic pollution cannot be considered separately from climate change and biodiversity loss. Greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the plastics life cycle, and plastics in soils, sediments, and waters can alter microbial activity and carbon and nitrogen cycling processes.
For mitigation, the authors propose a hierarchy that puts upstream prevention first. Priorities include reducing unnecessary and problematic plastic production, designing products with safer chemicals and longer useful lives, and making reuse and recycling easier. Biobased, biodegradable, and compostable plastics can be useful in suitable applications, but their environmental benefits depend on feedstocks, product design, and the conditions under which they are collected and treated. Recycling and end-of-pipe removal technologies also have important roles, but they cannot compensate for continued growth in poorly designed, short-lived products.
“Plastic pollution cannot be solved by cleaning up waste after it has already been created,” said Yong-Guan Zhu, the corresponding author of the paper. “The strongest response begins upstream, by reducing unnecessary production, making products safer and easier to reuse or recycle, and preventing leakage. Downstream technologies remain important, but they must support rather than replace prevention.”
The authors identify five obstacles that require particular attention: incomplete information on chemicals used in plastics, weak monitoring of plastic flows and environmental pollution, uncertain estimates of social costs, limited evaluation of whether policies work, and the gap between promising technologies and large-scale application. They call for transparent chemical disclosure, science-based criteria for phasing out hazardous or problematic products, standardized monitoring, open data, independent policy evaluation and clearer accountability across international supply chains.
The paper concludes that plastic pollution control should be integrated with action on climate change and biodiversity loss under a planetary health framework. This will require coordinated action by governments, industry, researchers, and the public to promote sustainable production and consumption, minimize waste and leakage, mitigate existing damage, and strengthen global governance.