Conclusion

Prevention of plastic pollution is an urgent issue. Reducing plastic pollution in our oceans would advance the Sustainable Development Goals ) in multiple areas, while protecting animal and human life. However, further analysis and monitoring are needed to ensure that research outputs – which provide the essential evidential basis for global sustainability policies and actions – are actively balanced between the different aspects of plastic pollution in our oceans.

As one commenter notes, ocean pollution can be controlled by deploying data-driven strategies.⁴⁶ There must be a multidisciplinary and multinational approach where best practices are identified and shared among scientists, marine specialists, and public health organisations, so that we can make much-needed change on a large scale. Tools such as Dimensions that allow interested parties to efficiently search through and categorise research outputs can provide valuable support in this endeavour, allowing users to pull together relevant data and research, informing further studies, action and policy.

Broad coverage in the news, and discussion through blogs or social media channels, extends the impact of research outputs, increases pressure on decision-makers, and maintains the momentum of discussion and attentions. This is where platforms like Altmetric play an important role, by simply scoring attention on each published study, showing which papers have received coverage beyond the scientific community and which have not. In turn, this enables an assessment of why some issues reach headlines and the resulting effects of this attention.