From 11 to 13 March 2025, the Global Partnership on Plastic Pollution and Marine Litter (GPML) convened a Community of Practice (CoP) Workshop on the Harmonization of Monitoring and Assessment of Plastic Pollution at the IAEA Environment Laboratory in Monaco. The workshop brought together key experts in plastic pollution monitoring across the economy, waste management, and environmental sectors.
The GPML CoP Workshop was organized with the aim to:
- Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) across the plastic life cycle to enable comprehensive progress measurement in addressing plastic pollution from source to sea;
- Identify key areas for harmonization, including terminologies and definitions, to support the development of a glossary that facilitates greater comparability of KPI-related data;
- Explore options for data integration and expansion of the Digital Platform Data Hub to support global and national monitoring, assessment, and progress tracking;
- Enhance coordination and alignment with international partners through the GPML framework.
Discussions during the workshop aimed to inform the further conceptualization and development of guidance on data harmonization, support capacity-building initiatives for countries and stakeholders, and promote the use of tools incorporated in the Global Plastics Hub. Participants also explored opportunities for integrating additional datasets and linking with partner platforms and systems such as the IAEA NUTEC portal, the Integrated Marine Debris Observing System (IMDOS), and others.
The workshop concluded with key recommendations to prioritize harmonization of monitoring methodologies for critical indicators across the plastic life cycle—including plastics in the economy, plastic waste management, and plastics in the environment. Recommendations included:
- Advancing the alignment of various plastic classification systems to identify corresponding codes for KPIs related to plastics in the economy;
- Considering approaches for estimating plastic leakage or emissions from high-impact products (e.g., tyres, agricultural plastics);
- Streamlining waste characterization and classification of coastal macro-litter plastics to strengthen the evidence base;
- Developing a shared set of terminologies to clearly define concepts related to plastic flows and emissions.
The GPML Community of Practice on Plastic Monitoring and Assessment Harmonization will continue its efforts to advance methodological harmonization, improve plastic data comparability, and provide consistent guidance to support countries in coherently measuring plastic pollution.