Novel entities
Why plastics pollution is much more than a litter problem
Waste and pollution often flow from high-income to low-income regions – a pattern Patricia Villarubia-Goméz describes as “waste colonialism". Photo: Canva.
When we think of plastic pollution, most of us picture bags drifting across the ocean or heaps of bottles on remote beaches. But researcher Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez – recently recognized with a royal prize for her work – wants us to understand that this is only a fragment of a much larger crisis.
- By framing plastics pollution as a problem of waste management, society ignores its roots, and will therefore miss effective solutions
- Recycling or beach clean-ups, while well-intentioned, do nothing to tackle the forces driving overproduction, fossil-fuel expansion, and chemical contamination.
- Instead, the research suggests limiting the creation of new, fossil-fuel-based plastics rather than managing waste after the fact
In her doctoral thesis The Global Plastics Pollution Challenge: A Social-Ecological Perspective (Stockholm University, 2025), she argues that the world must stop seeing plastics as simply a “waste problem.”
Her work was recently awarded the King Carl XVI Gustaf Foundation's 50th Anniversary Fund for Science, Technology and the Environment prize for early career researchers (see Box).
Plastics pollution, Villarubia-Goméz writes in her thesis, is a social-ecological challenge – one rooted in fossil-fuel dependence, toxic chemicals, and deep global inequalities.
“This representation, constructed by plastics industry over decades, reduces plastics pollution to a waste problem, one assumed solvable through clean-ups, recycling or technological fixes,” Villarrubia-Gómez notes. “This thesis challenges that simplification.”
Everywhere, from resource extraction and production to politics
Ninety-nine percent of plastics are made from fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), and production is set to triple by 2060. From extraction to disposal, plastics contribute to the release of greenhouse gases, toxic substances, and microscopic fragments that now pervade every corner of the planet – from mountaintops to human lungs. They “produce impacts that span from subcellular to planetary scale,” she writes, affecting both ecosystems and human health.
That health impact is one of the most disturbing findings. Beyond presence the micro- and nanoplastics that have been detected in human blood, lungs, placentas, and even brain tissue, very concerning is that plastics uses more than 16 000 chemicals – including bisphenols, flame retardants and plasticisers – linked to cancer, hormonal disruption, and developmental disease.
“Plastics’ toxicity extends far beyond visible litter,” Villarrubia-Gómez writes. “It seeps into the most intimate spaces of life – our bodies.”
Those living closest to resource extraction and production sites and waste dumps face the greatest risks. Entire communities have become “sacrifice zones,” such us “the Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, occupying a geographical area of more than 137 km where exposure to chemical pollution is routine.
Plastics are also deeply entangled with global politics, economics and culture. They embody convenience and modernity, yet they also expose injustice. “Plastics’ social consequences are real, vast, and unequally distributed,” she writes. Waste and pollution often flow from high-income to low-income regions – a pattern she describes as “waste colonialism.”
Why it’s not just about litter
Villarrubia-Gómez’s central argument is that by framing plastics pollution as a problem of waste management, society ignores its roots, and will therefore miss effective solutions. Recycling or beach clean-ups, while well-intentioned, do nothing to tackle the forces driving overproduction, fossil-fuel expansion, and chemical contamination.
“Such a funneled framing masks root causes of plastics pollution – fossil fuel dependence, toxic chemical content, and systemic overproduction – while delaying transformative action,” she writes. “The plastics problem must be addressed at the production end.”
In her analysis, the plastics crisis spans the entire life-cycle – from raw-material extraction to manufacturing, use and disposal – each stage generating harm. It has become a planetary-scale phenomenon that “disrupts multiple Earth-system processes, with many irreversible impacts.”
What must change
Her key recommendations for solutions include:
- Controlled and reduced resource extraction and production: limiting the creation of new, fossil-fuel-based plastics rather than managing waste after the fact.
- Chemical transparency and control: regulating the chemicals in plastics, specially the more than 4 000 chemicals of concern, or the more tan 10 000 chemicals for which we do not have hazardous information
- Systemic governance: policies that integrate robust scientific evidence of environmental and human health impacts, equity, justice and human rights instead of narrow technical fixes.
- Power-aware policymaking: resisting industry narratives that downplay systemic harm.
“We need governance approaches grounded in justice, equity, and planetary stewardship,” Villarrubia-Gómez concludes.
About the prize
The prize is awarded yearly by the King Carl XVI Gustaf Foundation's 50th Anniversary Fund for Science, Technology and the Environment. It will be presented by King Carl XVI himself in a ceremony on 19 May 2026. Patricia Villarubia-Goméz is one of 14 recipients of this year’s prize.
“It is a great honour to receive the King Carl XVI Gustaf 50th Anniversary Fund for Science, Technology and the Environment,” says Patricia Villarubia-Goméz:
“I came to Sweden early in my career, inspired by its long tradition of sustainability research, and it has become my home. Through interdisciplinary work at Stockholm University and SLU, and with my colleagues in the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty, I have tried to help connect research with real-world decision-making. Plastics pollution is a global, fast-growing challenge with many sources, impacts, and proposed solutions, and the choices made now will shape environmental and human well-being for decades. I accept this award with gratitude and renewed commitment to contributing knowledge that supports effective, evidence-based action.”
The foundation’s purpose is to promote research, technological development, and entrepreneurship that contribute to the sustainable use of natural resources and the preservation of biodiversity.
Patricia Villarubia-Goméz
Read the full thesis here:
The global plastics pollution challenge: A social-ecological perspective
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