In an ongoing study, a Finnish research team has tested a new method for detecting and tracking the degradation of plastics in bodies of water. The team used so-called recombinant bacterial whole-cell biosensors – in short, biosensors – which were structured in such a way that they light up on contact with the monomer acrylic acid. According to the Finnish research team, the results show that the degradation of plastic waste in freshwater and salt water could be monitored with the help of these biosensors.

The Roundtable on Marine Litter has been working for seven years on recommendations for action to combat plastic pollution in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The starting situation for setting up the Roundtable on Marine Litter was the national implementation of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive in Germany. The Roundtable thus set out to develop concrete strategies for implementing measures to meet the national targets. At the beginning of June 2023, the participants met up with the patrons of the Roundtable, Germany's Environment Minister, Steffi Lemke, the Lower Saxony Environment Minister, Christian Meyer, and the President of the Federal Environment Agency, Dirk Messner, in Berlin, to present the results of their work to date.

Dr. Klaus Wittstock is Director Industry Affairs and head of Environment Policy at the global chemicals Group BASF, and has been active for 28 years in various functions for the company. Since 2017, Wittstock, a chemical engineer, has been a member of the Advisory Committee of BKV GmbH, to which he previously belonged for over ten years as spokesman of the Technical Committee. We asked the plastics expert for his appraisal of the preparations for the global agreement of the United Nations, which aims to reduce the impact on the environment of improperly disposed-of plastic waste.

Plastic as an art form: From the end of June to the beginning of October, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt dedicated a large thematic exhibition to the eventful history of plastic in the visual arts. The PLASTIC WORLD exhibition showed objects, assemblages, installations, films and documentation from nearly seven decades. More than 100 works from around 50 international artists were on show, including Christo, Niki de Saint Phalle and Tue Greenfort, who is involved with the discovery of a fungus in the Amazon region that can metabolise polyurethane.