Plastic pollution: What is researched and where the field is heading – Insights from the MICRO conferences from 2018 to 2024

Abstract

Over the past two decades, research on (micro)plastics has expanded rapidly, with a dominant focus on identifying where plastics are found in the environment, which polymer types are present and what chemicals are associated with them. Although leading scholars increasingly emphasise the urgent need for interdisciplinary approaches that integrate human behaviour, policy, health, socio-economic and socio-ecological systems, it remains unclear whether scientific activity is evolving in line with these calls. The MICRO conference series – one of the largest recurring international meetings on plastic pollution – offers a unique perspective through which to assess research priorities and emerging trends in plastic research. This study analyses all abstracts submitted to the MICRO conferences between 2018 and 2024 ( n  = 1,794) to examine whether research activity reflects the growing need for interdisciplinary, social, behavioural, health and governance-oriented approaches to plastic pollution. Following stop-word removal, 276 meaningful lemmas were identified (i.e., words for which different spellings were collapsed) and inductively grouped into 12 themes. Four themes – One Health, Human Dimensions, Policy and Governance, and Lifecycle and Waste Management – were selected for in-depth analysis, including their prevalence over time and the qualitative context in which high-frequency terms were used. Across all conference years, research remained strongly dominated by natural science-oriented themes. Engagement with socio-economic, behavioural, educational and policy dimensions was comparatively limited, and contributions from the Global South remained underrepresented, with little evidence of change over time. Together, these findings point to a persistent gap between the direction that plastic research is widely encouraged to take and the research that is currently being presented in this key international forum. We discuss implications for conference design, abstract selection criteria, funding priorities and global inclusion, and argue for a stronger emphasis on socio-economic, behavioural, cultural and educational perspectives to better support effective and equitable action on plastic pollution.