Legislation and Policy on Pollution Prevention and the Control of Marine Microplastics

Abstract

Marine microplastic pollution and plastic pollution are two different things but they are related. In the past 10 years, several countries and regions have issued a ban on microbeads. We analyze the above countries or regions according to three aspects: whether there is special legislation for marine microplastic pollution, the subject of the regulations, and the prevention and control measures. The common feature of the policy documents of these countries is that they target the ban of only microbeads and no other types of microplastics. Based on a comparative study, we found three dilemmas in the regulation of marine microplastic pollution. We conducted a comparative analysis of the legislation or policy documents of the above-mentioned countries and regions in order to identify how they solve the above difficulties. We summarized three legislative and policy regulation models and analyzed their respective advantages. Based on legal theories and empirical methods, some observations and suggestions are made regarding the regulation of primary and secondary microplastic pollution, especially in China’s situation.