Plastic pollution is widely recognised as a planetary threat, affecting many marine and freshwater ecosystems. Plastic pollution manifests itself as beach litter, floating in water bodies, sinking to the seafloor, as well as in soils and sediments. Microplastics have been detected in edible consumables, air samples, and biota. Conserving our oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development, preserving recreational areas on land by curbing plastic waste and littering, and driving innovation and investment towards circular plastics solutions are of global concern.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) specifically address plastic pollution in SDG 14 Life Below Water (SDG 14.1.1b Plastic debris density). Other SDG goals do not have specific targets for plastic pollution but are indirectly impacted. The need to address the impacts of plastic pollution is being included in European environmental regulations and the EU Plastics Strategy. However, plastic pollution research is a relatively young discipline and methodologies are continuously developing and are not yet standardised. This makes tracking the evolution of environmental indicators in time or comparison difficult. Therefore, there is a strong need to harmonise and standardise all aspects of environmental monitoring (sampling, analysis and data treatment), with QA/QC being the driving force. There are currently no harmonised protocols to measure indicators for plastic pollution. Developing methods, protocols, tools, and indicators for society to measure plastic pollution in a quality assured way are at the core of the EUROqCHARM project’s activities.
The overall objective of EUROqCHARM is to develop optimised, validated, and harmonised methods for the assessment and monitoring of plastics in the environment, as well as blueprints for standards and recommendations for policy and legislation.
EUROqCHARM’ s specific objectives are:
1. To identify state-of-the-art methods for sample collection, sample preparation and analysis of plastics (nano-, micro-, macro-) in four different environmental matrices (water, soil/sediment, air and biota) currently in use.
2. To identify state-of-the-art protocols, recommendations, and guidelines, which are currently being used for monitoring and assessment of plastics in different environmental matrices by European member states, through a systematic review of current practices of international working groups and institutions.
3. To harmonise sample preparation, analysis, and data reporting formats as recommendations for standards.
4. To harmonise monitoring methods that can be used by stakeholders to formulate and implement policy and legislation at European and international levels.
5. To promote capacity building to facilitate and accelerate adoption of developed standards and guidelines by EU policy and legislation.
