Narrating Micro- And Nanoplastics: Urgency, Responsibility And Policy Pathways

Micro- and nanoplastics, along with plastic-associated chemicals, are increasingly recognized as pervasive environmental pollutants, adding a new and complex dimension to the global plastic pollution crisis. As plastics reach the end of their lifecycle and fragment into the environment, micro- and nanoplastics (MNP) generate diffuse and often unforeseen environmental and health risks that challenge existing environmental governance and spark growing discussions. Within this context, scientists – often portrayed as neutral informants to policy – actively contextualize, frame and narrate findings and, thereby, influence what is seen as pollution, what counts as evidence and what kinds of interventions appear legitimate. This raises the question of whether and how other actors take on, reinterpret or adapt those framings, shaping how the topic is further problematized and what solutions gain traction, paving policy pathways. To study how the complexity of the topic is presented, as well as urgency and responsibility attributed, this paper examines how different stakeholders construct the discourse on MNP and envision just strategies for mitigating MNP pollution. Drawing on stakeholder workshop transcripts, policy documents, and explorative interviews with NGOs, regulators, academia and industry representatives, the study explores how stakeholders negotiate uncertainties, risks, and responsibilities through narratives and use their discursive agency to disperse arguments. We identify how MNP pollution and its management are discussed as well as which strategic practices are used to attain legitimacy, pave governance pathways and influence regulatory trajectories. Examining MNP discourse reveals how stakeholders construct plastic waste not as an inevitable byproduct of modern life, but as a site of contested environmental future imaginaries. Policy trajectories for MNP emerge in the tension between calls for further research, often delaying regulatory interventions, and demands for decisive action applying precautionary measures in response to perceived risks. In this contested space, stakeholders play a decisive role in (re)shaping the terrain of policy and policy pathways for MNP.