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Plastic pollution as an emerging environmental contaminant: our current understanding of the problem, and future planning for research and monitoring to inform emerging national and international policies
Plastic pollution is now a pervasive global pollutant. The fate and effects of plastic pollution is largely unknown, and many of Canada’s ecosystems are impacted by plastics pollution from both local and distant sources of plastic pollution. In the environment, plastic pollution represents a complex set of pollutants including physical plastic pieces made from a diverse of polymers. Plastic pieces can range from mega-plastics such as abandoned-lost-discarded fishing gear, down to microplastics that can be ingested by species, and nanoplastics that can penetrate the organs of animals.
In the Arctic, while the longest and richest data from over 17 years of ingested plastic data from seabirds, studies have now examined ingested plastics in dozens of species, including invertebrates, fish, seals, walrus, polar bears and whales. Plastic also have a chemical contaminant component, with plastic additives known to be toxic to biota. More recent work has explored how invertebrates can change and later plastic pollution, and potentially impact how it move through terrestrial ecosystems. It is within the context of the global need for monitoring of plastic pollution that we must consider indicators to support policy decisions, and model systems to further research questions on effects. This includes ongoing discussions on plastic pollution monitoring at the UN, Arctic Council, PICES, as well as many other international organizations. This talk will review the state of knowledge of plastic pollution and additives in the Canadian Arctic, and discuss how future sampling will help expand our understanding of plastic pollution.
*The session will also be accessible via zoom.
Dr. Jennifer Provencher
Dr. Jennifer Provencher is a research scientist with the Ecotoxicology and Wildlife Health Division in Environment and Climate Change Canada. She has a BSc and BEd from the University of British Columbia, her MSc at the University of Victoria, and her PhD at Carleton University. Her post-doctoral work was done at Acadia University, where she was a Weston Fellow and a Liber Ero fellow. Dr. Provencher has collaborated with partners across the Arctic since the 2007-08 International Polar Year, when she was a graduate student and visited the Arctic for the first time. Her current work addresses wildlife health, and in the Arctic it currently focuses on legacy and emerging contaminants, including plastic pollution. Her work on plastic pollution in the Arctic dates back to the 2000s, and her research team works to explore both the fate and the effects of plastic pollution on all three of Canada’s coasts. Given her wildlife health mandate, more recently her research program also includes working with partners on emerging wildlife health issues such as SARS-CoV-2 in wildlife, co-development of wood bison health metrics, and the effects of the most recent highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. She is currently the lead of the long-term seabird contaminants project under the Northern Contaminants Program (NCP), and is the co-chair of the Litter and Microplastics Expert Group (LMEG) for Canada under the Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP).
