29 July 2026
Maria Eugenia Molina Jack, a data steward at the NODC, has been in Vienna attending the interregional meeting on the NUTEC plastics marine monitoring network: a common platform for global knowledge.
Nuclear Technology for Controlling Plastic Pollution (NUTEC Plastics) is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flagship initiative to address the global challenge of plastic pollution. In particular, this has been done by bringing together partners worldwide to monitor plastics in the ocean and introduce new technologies to recycle them. Currently, 99 countries are participating in marine monitoring of microplastics, and 52 are developing innovative recycling technologies.
During the meeting the IAEA launched the new NUTEC Plastics Global Marine Monitoring Platform, designed to strengthen international collaboration and knowledge sharing on the amount and trends of microplastics in marine and coastal zones. The IAEA invited OGS to the event, as the National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) managed by the Institute has helped and supported the initiative over the years. Specifically, the NODC, as scientific coordinator of the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) Chemistry project, began collaborating with the IAEA in 2024 to support the creation of a database to collect micro-litter data from NUTEC Member States. The database aims to enable straightforward, harmonised and interoperable reporting across countries worldwide.
“OGS, in close collaboration with ICES, provided several recommendations, which the IAEA received positively and implemented, drawing on OGS technical support and experience.” Maria Eugenia says and continues: “For example, the NUTEC partnership decided to adopt the European Directory of Marine Organisations (EDMO) catalogue to identify partners in the database, and we have been acting as intermediaries for the inclusion of new institutions in the catalogue.” She concludes by stating: “NUTEC Plastics is an excellent initiative for many reasons. First, it has built a global network that applies the same microlitter monitoring system. Over the years, evidence has demonstrated that this is crucial for obtaining comparable data. We are pleased that the IAEA has valued our experience and hope the dataset can feed into regional and global data infrastructures.”
To learn more about the EMODnet Chemistry project and its expertise in marine litter data management, view the presentations given by NODC at the NUTEC meetings in 2024 and 2026.
