In the business of dirty oceans: Overview of startups and entrepreneurs managing marine plastic

Abstract

Plastic pollution, especially in marine environments, is a global problem that is currently inadequately managed. Solutions for marine plastic can occur through policy, behavior change and infrastructure improvements, but also through entrepreneurial ventures and technological innovations. Currently, information about these ventures and innovations is scattered and lacks coherence. This study presents the first comprehensive overview of entrepreneurial and SME led solutions for marine plastic by analyzing a database of 105 SMEs categorized into four functions: prevention, collection, transformation and monitoring. We find that small businesses are successfully commercializing goods and services to reduce the damage of plastics on the marine environment through innovative business models, with a steep growth of startups founded between 2016 and 2019. However, efforts to manage marine plastic are still underdeveloped in many areas, including microplastic management and monitoring. Practitioners, policymakers and researchers can utilize the database to identify solutions, best practices, synergies and avenues for further research, such as quantifying the environmental impacts of this industry.

Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions

“…The integration of the IRS in public and private waste management agencies was found to be synergistically beneficial in terms of environmental and economic improvement and also provides decent and respectable livelihood [238]. With better plastic management, the water bodies will be cleaner, which will help in the tourism sector [239] as well as entrepreneurship [240].…”

“…is also becoming popular. Innovative enterprises and start-ups with informal waste pickers in waste clean-up businesses were reported to be symbiotically beneficial [240]. Research and innovation in plastic waste reuse, as well as physical and chemical recycling, will be a great boon as plastic is ubiquitous, and its replacement with alternatives would be difficult and would take a long time.…”

Microplastics do not increase bioaccumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons in Arctic zooplankton but trigger feeding suppression under co-exposure conditions

“…There is also potential to reduce the amount of marine litter through a combination of market-based instruments (environmental taxes, direct payments, deposit-refund schemes etc.) (Oosterhuis et al, 2014), infrastructure for waste disposal improvements, and entrepreneurial ventures and technological innovations (Dijkstra et al, 2020(Dijkstra et al, , 2021.…”

A Review of Technological Solutions to Prevent or Reduce Marine Plastic Litter in Developing Countries

“…Technology owners typically have put strategic effort onto the implementation, either by establishing a link towards the local community and/or developing a specific outreach strategy to raise awareness. In line with Dijkstra, van Beukering and Brouwer [33], it was found that many businesses including cleanup and collection offer innovative approaches to raise funding to support waste management. They rely on people power from the local communities to participate in waste management activities.…”

“…However, there is only a limited number of systematic reviews on technological solutions to prevent or reduce marine litter in both the scientific and the 'grey' literature. Dijkstra et al [33], for example, focus on start-ups and recent developments of solutions tackling marine plastic pollution. Schmaltz et al [34] made a comprehensive inventory of technologies currently used or in development to prevent the leakage of plastic pollution or collect existing plastic pollution.…”