Conclusion and future drection
Recommendations:
- Realistic discussions should be proposed to ensure a significant change in policies and implementation of existing ones.
- Existing laws on environmental pollution and the development of stringent plastic discharge regulations need to be strengthened.
- Plastic industries and firms responsible for production should be monitored or sanctioned where necessary.
The absence of statutory law formulations, as well as being weak and poorly enforced with inadequate compliance in most developing countries, contributes to the continuous discharge of plastics and microplastics into the coastal waters. As there exist environmental regulations to monitor different environmental pollutions, there should be specific environmental guidelines and standards that would guide plastic discharge and non-compliance of policies in countries. Therefore, in-depth knowledge of the environmental fate and potential adverse effects of microplastics in aquatic environments is needed. With the increase in microplastics and its effects on marine ecosystems, it is suggested that community and public vanguards could be initiated to develop a feasible platform for microplastics’ mitigation and ecosystem balance. (Schnurr et al., 2018; WHO, 2020; Anagnosti , 2021)
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