Toward harmonised monitoring of plastic pollution: description of a systematic review to evaluate and apply reproducible methods

Summary

Plastic pollution monitoring programs use a wide array of methods, protocols, and analytical approaches, making it difficult for researchers and practitioners to determine which techniques to apply, where, and how. This lack of harmonisation across environmental compartments and plastic size classes has led to inconsistent data and limited comparability across studies. To address this, a systematic review of monitoring methods from 1960 to 2021 was conducted, encompassing both peer-reviewed and grey literature. Techniques were categorised into Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAPs), each comprising six core steps: survey design, sample collection, sample preparation, analytical detection, quantification, and data reporting. Each RAP was assessed using Technological Readiness Levels (TRLs) to evaluate maturity and suitability for standardised monitoring. The review revealed that while robust and repeatable methods exist, they are inconsistently applied. At the time of this review, atmospheric plastics was underrepresented, highlighting a critical gap in monitoring efforts. The findings underscore the urgent need for a global, objective framework to guide the selection and implementation of plastic pollution monitoring methodologies. This paper lays the foundation for such a framework by presenting a methodology to identify mature, reproducible methods and prioritise areas for further development. Future work should focus on harmonising protocols across compartments and size classes, improving transparency in data reporting, and building consensus around standardised practices to enable global comparability and policy relevance.