The environmental issues related to the presence of plastics are now unanimously recognized. The national (governments) and international (European Union, United Nations) institutions have taken action to better understand the consequences of the presence of these plastic debris in the environment and to try to reduce their releases

The mission of the GDR “Polymers and Oceans”, recently created under the aegis of the CNRS, is to federate the French scientific community (composed by chemists, physicists, biologists, ecologists, ecotoxicologists, oceanographers, economists and sociologists) working on the fate of plastics in the environment to support the emergence of multi-scale and new interdisciplinary research.

The main objectives of this GDR are:

• to define the main scientific questions and methodological obstacles around this topic;
• to structure very diverse scientific communities and facilitate the establishment of scientific and technical collaborations between disciplinary fields to support multidisciplinary approaches that are essential to meet the challenges of this topic;
• to promote collaboration between academic research and industrial research/innovation in relation to competitiveness clusters (e.g. Brittany-Atlantic and Mediterranean MER Poles, IAR) and learned societies (e.g. SFP, SCF, GFP) ;
• play an active role in the implementation of new experimental protocols to assess the fate of polymers in the aquatic environment ;
• create an information exchange platform offering an open window to respond to the many requests from economic actors, the media, NGOs and politicians and influence institutional prospects ;
• participate in the dissemination of scientific knowledge acquired through the organization of an annual national conference and thematic schools.

More information on the website of the first meetings of this GDR

Ika Paul-Pont and Arnaud Huvet are involved in the scientific council of this GDR.