Plastic pollution: The challenges of uncertainty and multiplicity in global marine governance

This chapter examines uncertainty and ‘multiplicity’ in the massive and growing challenge for global marine governance of plastic pollution. Plastic pollution in the oceans and seas is having long-term impacts on marine organisms and ecosystems, yet there are a few effective strategies for dealing with that pollution. Importantly, much of the problem originates on land; about four-fifths of the plastics in the world’s oceans come from land-based sources. Responding to this problem has involved many different actors, both state and nonstate, but attempts at effective governance have, for the most part, failed. The chapter highlights ongoing debates regarding the best means by which to manage marine plastic pollution effectively and describes the multiplicity of governance schemes across sectors, scales and types of actors. These schemes have the potential to become more effective through experimentation, learning and critical monitoring leading to transformative changes in the ways that plastics are produced, used, and discarded.