Assessment of sources, impacts, and public policy responses
ECODEM thesis partners
Marine plastic pollution: an environmental and socio-economic challenge for public policies
Plastic pollution currently represents a major challenge for economic thought, revealing the tensions between growth-based production systems and the planet's ecological limits. The impact of waste, and specifically plastics, on the marine environment is of increasing importance within the framework of Regional Sea Conventions (OSPAR, Barcelona) and the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). However, the scientific committees established to support these international public policies still insufficiently integrate the social and economic dimensions of plastic pollution into their deliberations. Given this lack of consideration for socio-economic factors, this thesis project was developed in collaboration with leading scientific experts focusing on the environmental aspects of marine litter within public policy frameworks (thematic and monitoring leads for MSFD Descriptor 10 "Marine Litter", members of dedicated working groups in Regional Sea Conventions, etc.), including CEDRE.
This doctoral project, led by Ms. Aanchal JAIN, aims to develop and provide a coherent set of economic instruments to analyze the ecological, economic, and public policy consequences of marine litter pollution. The project is aligned with the MSFD, which defines a general objective of marine environment protection (Good Environmental Status of marine waters) and an action plan to achieve it. With co-supervision by AMURE/CEDRE, the thesis proposes to strengthen the links between environmental, economic, and social analysis conducted on marine litter under the MSFD. CEDRE contributes its expertise on aquatic waste pollution and provides its knowledge and data acquired through monitoring actions and ongoing projects. Conversely, the thesis work brings an economic perspective to the aquatic waste initiatives led by CEDRE.
Expert workshop on the evaluation of marine litter policies in France, November 2024
Towards an integrated approach to the environmental and socio-economic impacts of marine litter
The doctoral thesis employs an interdisciplinary approach to develop concepts and tools to inform decision-makers in plastic waste management. The research question is addressed using the DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Responses) framework logic. The economy (Driver) is a source of plastic materials (Pressure), which modifies the environment (State) and affects society (Impact). Based on this conceptual foundation, the thesis develops an integrated analytical framework applied to marine macroplastic pollution in metropolitan France. It is organized around three main contributions:
The first contribution consists of developing an extended input-output model that explicitly integrates environmental leakages into various ecological compartments. While existing models primarily represent economic flows and waste treatments, they rarely account for the fate of plastics when they escape management circuits. This model thus reconnects economic plastic flows to their actual ecological destinations and highlights the economy/environment interface within a macroeconomic framework.
The second contribution develops an analysis of impact chains linking plastic pollution trajectories to ecosystem degradation, risks to ecosystem services, and ultimately, human well-being. Drawing on work in ecotoxicology and ecosystem service assessment frameworks, this approach seeks to represent the ecological consequences of pollution without reducing all damage to a single monetary metric. It adopts a pluralistic and multidimensional conception of environmental value, consistent with the principles of ecological economics.
The third contribution proposes a multi-criteria evaluation framework specifically designed for plastic pollution mitigation policies. Conventional approaches often evaluate policies based on partial indicators — recycling rates, management costs, or economic efficiency — without truly measuring their ability to reduce ecological damage. In contrast, the proposed framework evaluates policy measures across the entire plastic lifecycle and explicitly confronts them with ecological objectives defined within a strong sustainability logic.
The results demonstrate that plastic pollution is a structural consequence of current economic systems and requires governance forms based not on marginal adjustments, but on structural transformation compatible with ecological constraints.
