Networking Friday with LabPlas Project
High-Level Dialogue on Plastic Governance
High-Level Dialogue on Plastic Governance
May 26, 2023, 1-3 PM UTC
Plastics are an integral part of modern life, used in a broad range of applications such as packaging, construction, transport, furniture, medical applications, and machinery. However, this comes at an increasing environmental cost. Most of the plastic waste is either accumulating in landfills or the natural environment, where it eventually ends ups in the ocean. While annual global production of plastics recently reached over 350 million tonnes/year, it has been estimated near 10 million tonnes/year are entering the ocean every year. This massive accumulation of plastics that is taking place in the environment poses a major threat to ecosystems, human health, and economy.
EU-funded LAnd Based solutions for PLAstics in the Sea Project (LabPlas) project is a comprehensive collective effort from 16 organisations to better understand the sources, transport, distribution and impacts of plastic pollution. LabPlas Project is studying the smaller small micro and nanoplastics (SMNPs) (<100 µm), which are commonly not monitored in the environment, and pose the highest risk to organisms and human health. LabPlas Project will provide scientific evidence supporting decision making in regulatory efforts and clarification on misperceptions of plastic properties. Furthermore, LabPlas Project will apply technological advances, promote biodegradable novel materials, and present results to national and international authorities and industry for decision making.
The High-Level Dialogue will bring together the plastic industry, scientific community, intergovernmental organizations and civil society, in order to discuss what the different actors in Europe (industry, society, policy) are achieving to address the highly complex and multi-faceted problem of plastic pollution, and to present the ambitious research from LabPlas project, in terms of key issues related to plastics in ecosystems, such as sources, biodegradability, ecotoxicology and environmental assessment. The High-Level Dialogue aims to increase engagement and discussion among stakeholders, create synergies and promote cooperation and coordinated actions towards the goal of zero plastic pollution by 2050, as envisioned by the recent EU’s Zero Pollution Action Plan.
The LabPlas H2020 Project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101003954
Programme (PM UTC)
1:00 – Welcome and Introduction, André Valente (AIR Centre)
1:10 – Session | Plastic governance strategy
- EU Zero Pollution Action Plan and Source to sea marine litter assessment, Mustafa Aydin (EEA)
- Challenges for the EU industry – prepare for change, Camilla Carteny (Plastics Europe)
- Plastic in the Ocean: key changes ahead in Europe , Sigi Gruber (Senior Adviser for EC)
1:40 – Session | small micro- and nano plastics (SMNPs)
- LabPlas project: tackling SMNPs knowledge gaps, Cynthia Gómez (UVI)
- Multi-matrix SMNPs contamination and impacts, Ricardo Beiras (UVI)
- Biodegradable polymers, Glauco Battagliarin (BASF)
- Estimating and reducing car tyre emissions in collaboration with stakeholders, Ad Ragas (RU)
2:40 – Round table: Knowledge gaps to policy implementation, moderated by André Valente (AIR Centre)
3:00 – Closing
This is an Ocean Decade Event.
Speakers
Sigi Gruber
Since 1 January 2021 retired European Commission Official, currently still working as Active Senior Advisor for the European Commission. From 2014 until 2021, she was the Head of the Healthy Ocean and Seas Unit, in the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission. The Unit defined, implemented, and monitored Research and Innovation strategies to support the European Union’s marine and maritime related policies such as the Integrated Maritime Policy, its Blue Economy Agenda and the different Sea basin Strategies, thereby contributing to the sustainable and responsible management of marine resources, both in Europe and globally. The Unit also coordinated and implemented for the European Union the All-Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance and the Blue Growth calls of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The Unit’s work also co-created the moon-shot Mission on ‘Restoring our Ocean and Water by 2030’; supported the UN Decade for Ocean Science and many other global initiatives; and shaped the Ocean and Seas related parts of Horizon Europe, the most important Research & Innovation Programme of the European Union. Sigi Gruber started to work for the European Commission in 1991, with different responsibilities in Education and Training, the European Institute of Technologies, Universities and Research, International S&T Cooperation. Prior to joining the European Commission, she worked in the public and private sector in Italy and Germany.
Camilla Catarci Carteny
Challenges for the EU industry: prepare for change
Camilla Catarci Carteny is Technical Project Manager at Plastics Europe, the pan-European trade association of plastics manufacturers. Her main topic of expertise within the association is nano- and microplastics, both in a human health and environmental context. She joined Plastics Europe in 2021, having previously worked in academia on a number of international publicly funded scientific research projects related to microplastics. Camilla is a Marine Biologist with a background in Aquatic Toxicology. She performed her PhD research at the University of Antwerp, within a project dedicated to microplastics and conventional and biodegradable polymers’ behaviour in the marine environment.
Mustafa Aydin
Mustafa Aydin is an environmental expert and has a Ph.D. degree in earth system sciences on source-to-sea marine litter assessments. He has worked for more than twenty years almost in all scales of the environmental field from policy to data and assessments. At the EEA, his core work is monitoring and assessment of the EU Zero Pollution Action Plan. His job is to provide timely and actionable knowledge to policymakers on marine and freshwater pollution, impacts of the maritime transport sector on marine ecosystems, plastic pollution, and marine litter, aiming to help create a toxic-free environment.
Cynthia Gómez
Cynthia Gómez (Lima, Perú, 1974) studied biology and obtained her master’s degree (MSc) in Environmental Sciences from Wageningen University in the Netherlands. She currently holds a position as Project Manager in the Ecotoxicology and Marine Chemical Pollution Research Group at Vigo University, Spain. She has international experience in Europe, Africa, and America, leading diverse teams across various projects encompassing environmental impact assessments, sustainable development policies, and nature conservation initiatives. She is the project manager for the H2020 LAnd Based solutions for PLAstics in the Sea Project LabPlas, a collective effort of 20 research groups from 17 organisations from 8 countries committed to understanding the mainland-based sources, transport, distribution and impacts of plastic pollution in all environmental compartments to provide solid scientific grounds on which to develop European policies intended to regulate the use and management of plastics.
Ricardo Beiras
Ricardo Beiras (Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, 1965), graduated in Biology from the University of Santiago and made his PhD in aquaculture at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (I.E.O.)finished in 1992. Since then he worked as a marine researcher in the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML, UK), in the IFREMER, Station d’Arcachon (France), in the University of Antwerpen (Belgium) and in the University of Vigo (Galicia, Spain) where he is Full Professor in ecology, teaching Marine Pollution from 1995. He has been the head of ECIMAT, the University of Vigo’s Marine Station, with a staff of ca. 20 people, for 10 years. He is an international expert in marine pollution (+140 papers in SCI journals). Supervisor of 11 finished PhD Thesis. Expert under contract for evaluation rounds of EU. Advisor of I.E.O. at ICES working groups. Editor of Frontiers in Marine Sciences. He has coordinated the JPI-Oceans Ephemare Project, a consortium of 16 Institutions from 10 countries targeting the ecotoxicological effects of microplastics on marine ecosystems, and currently coordinates LabPlas Project, an H2020 European Project with 17 partners from 8 countries, involving industry and targeting the reduction of land-based emissions of plastic into the environment. He is the author of a Marine Pollution textbook edited by Elsevier in 2018. H-index: 44; total cites: 6010 (Scopus, 03/05/2023).
Glauco Battagliarin
Glauco Battagliarin is a research scientist and team leader working in group research at BASF. He studied material science at the University of Milano Bicocca and did his Ph.D. in chemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz. He joined BASF in 2012 and since 2015 is working in biopolymer research, where he is currently leading a team investigating and simulating the biodegradability and environmental fate of materials in different end of life scenarios.
Ad Ragas
Ad Ragas (1964) studied biology and obtained his PhD in Environmental Sciences at the Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He currently holds a position as a full professor in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment at the Radboud University. His main expertise is the modelling of human and ecological risks of chemicals, with a focus on pharmaceuticals and microplastics. He participates in several large European research projects such as PREMIER, TransPharm and LabPlas Project.
Moderator
André Valente
André Valente has a Degree in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from the University of Lisbon (Portugal), a postgraduation in Ocean Remote Sensing from the University of Southampton (UK) and a PhD in Environmental Sciences from the University of Azores (Portugal). He previously worked as a researcher at the University of Lisbon and currently works at the Earth Observation Lab of the AIR Centre. He specializes in the development of remote sensing methods for coastal and open-ocean applications. Previous works have focused on ocean climate variability, oceanic databases for satellite validation, physical-biological interactions in the ocean and marine plastic pollution. He has participated in over 20 national and international projects such as the ongoing EU’s H2020 LabPlas Project and the previous ESA’s Ocean Colour Climate Change Initiative.
We will continue with the Networking Fridays during the next months. More information about future sessions as well as presentations and videos from previous sessions can be found here. Twitter Hashtag: #netfridays. Expect some very exciting afternoons, or mornings or evenings, depending on where you are…
If you need any additional information please send an email to Jose Luiz Moutinho.
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