Engaging Stakeholders in Identifying Scenarios to Mitigate Marine Plastic Pollution in Hawai'i

Marine plastic pollution is a pressing environmental challenge that has inspired action by a diverse group of stakeholders across the globe. Global models of plastic pollution leakage have shown that current interventions, though ambitious, are insufficient for mitigating plastic pollution, and provide guidance on the level of effort needed to reach policy targets. However, global models do not have the resolution necessary to directly inform action. Here, we present a high-resolution model for predicting plastic pollution leakage in Hawai'i under various interventions scenarios. Hawai`i provides an ideal case study for examining the efficacy of interventions for plastic pollution, because it is an island community that is severely impacted by marine plastic and has many stakeholders intervening to address it. With the support of state, county, and municipal employees; non-profit organizations; and businesses, we developed three intervention scenarios: (1) business-as-usual, (2) ambitious action, and (3) zero emissions. Through these co-produced scenarios, we explored the effectiveness of current efforts, and identified a suite of feasible interventions that could be implemented by local stakeholders to achieve their zero emissions targets for the state.