The second edition of the International Conference on Microplastics (MICRO2018) was held in Lanzarote last week. This biannual meeting was born from a collaborative process coordinated by the scientific community with the aim of connecting with society with the problem of microplastics as a vehicle.
Five intense days of morning and afternoon agenda gave way to around 300 oral communications and more than 160 posters that described the undeniable ubiquity of microplastics in the environment, either in water, land or air, and from the chemistry, biology or physics perspective.
No less important in this matter, citizen science, social initiatives catalyzed by various non-profit organizations, as well as the world of art and effective (and fun!) communication had their place in the Conference.
Concerning our research group, we took the opportunity to present our work and seek for alliances, with the aim of installing the microplastic sampler on board of opportunity boats and contributing in this way to the improvement in the monitoring of contamination by microplastics required in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.
