Ulrike Felt & Kaye Mathies

Small plastic debris in ocean environments have been discussed in scientific literature the first time in the early 1970s. However, they have only gained public and policy attention in the last decade. In the EU, concern about microplastics became mainstream with the European Circular Economy Action Plan published by the European Commission in December 2015. Governing microplastics is not only challenging because of the ubiquity of microplastics in the environment, but also due to diversity of materials that fall under this label, their diverse sizes, forms and chemical compositions and a lack of clear classification and standardized measurements.

We will investigate how microplastics become a matter of concern for the EU and how it is transformed into a “European policy object” with all the challenges this brings with it. This means carefully analysing the ecosystem of EC documents in an effort to see how microplastics as a key residue is framed as a matter of concern and how it is turned into a matter of care through regulation.