Abstract
The Single-Use Plastics Directive (EU) 72/2019/904 is the main legislation governing plastic pollution, inclusive of marine plastic pollution in the European Union (EU). The Directive has issued market restrictions on several single-use plastic products which contribute to marine plastic pollution, including foamed polystyrene products made of expanded polystyrene (EPS). However, extruded polystyrene (XPS) which is commonly used in the same single-use plastics products as EPS has been omitted from the market placement restrictions within the scope of the Directive. This has subsequently compromised the Single-Use Plastics Directive’s effectiveness for reducing marine plastic pollution and hinders the efforts of related EU instruments such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Descriptor 10 toward achieving Good Environmental Status across the marine environment in the EU. This paper provides some background on EPS and XPS, and discusses plastic pollution policy making in the EU, while further addressing the role of quantitative data in the European Joint Research Centre’s Technical Report on Top Marine Beach Litter Items in the EU for the formulation of policy regulating foamed polystyrene derived marine plastic pollution. We also provide an overview of how the communication gaps in the polymer science nomenclature for polystyrene may have contributed to the development of misnomers for extruded and EPS, consequently compromising necessary data gathering efforts. Our perspective hopes to incite conversations on communication gaps between scientists and policy makers and emphasise the need for gathering quantitative disaggregated data on the foamed polystyrene market to inform European plastic pollution legislation adequately.
Highlights
International legal, policy, and management interventions are being implemented to mitigate and reduce the impacts of marine plastic pollution (Chen, 2015; Gago et al, 2016; Black et al, 2019a), these include European Union (EU) legal and policy instruments that can reduce the influx of plastic into the marine and wider environment; the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy and the SingleUse Plastics Directive (EU) 72 2019/904 (SUP Directive) (Black et al, 2019b)
The Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) establishes a regulatory strategy through which Member States must ensure Good Environmental Status (GES) in their marine waters and establishes a legal commitment toward marine plastic pollution mitigation (e.g., Descriptor 10)
The legal framework regulating plastic production and addressing its contribution to marine pollution in the EU is established through the SUP Directive and its supporting strategies, the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, and the EU Action Plan for a Circular Economy
Summary
International legal, policy, and management interventions are being implemented to mitigate and reduce the impacts of marine plastic pollution (Chen, 2015; Gago et al, 2016; Black et al, 2019a), these include EU legal and policy instruments that can reduce the influx of plastic into the marine and wider environment; the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy and the SingleUse Plastics Directive (EU) 72 2019/904 (SUP Directive) (Black et al, 2019b). The Impact Assessment (IA) carried out by the European Commission (EC) for the proposal of the SUP Directive developed a quantitative model based on the JRC data to determine the top 10 single-use plastic items that should be under the scope of the Directive (Elliott et al, 2018) It is not clear how the IA concluded that EPS single-use food containers and cups be included on this list, but it is of interest to note that EPS and XPS are referred to as one type of product. There are clearly identifiable environmental and human health pressures associated with foamed PS marine litter and following the precautionary principle which underpins EU environmental law would merit for both EPS and XPS single-use products to be subject to market placement restrictions
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