With the objective of give some insight into plastic pollution, solutions, and good practice examples regarding biodiversity (especially water) and how to effectively communicate information among different stakeholders, our colleagues of NIC organised the event “Scientific and business approaches for effective communication on microplastics and biodiversity” on 7 June 2024 in Ljubljana (Slovenia) and hybrid.

During the exciting “Week of the National Institute of Chemistry (NIC)“, a series of fascinating science-related events for the general public, our NIC colleagues hosted the workshop Skrivnosti Plastike (Secrets of plastics) workshop on 6 June 2024, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The event aimed to enlighten the younger generation about plastic pollution, explore potential solutions, and highlight the relevance of the SSbD4CheM project’s cosmetics case study in tackling this issue.

“Die Lange Nacht der Forschung” (The Long Night of Research) is a biannual event, that takes throughout Austria, offering free access to experience science and research first-hand in all nine federal provinces. You can engage in discussions with researchers, uncover hidden and intriguing aspects of science, and be amazed by what is revealed. It is pitched at the general public and aims to get people more interested in science, inform them about interesting projects happening in their city and also educate them on subjects. It is aimed at all ages with some events specially for children.

NANOPLASTICS research is an emerging and critically important area of environmental science, focusing on sources, distribution, and ecological impacts, while also developing more sensitive detection methods, and assessing the toxicity. This multidisciplinary field involves chemists, biologists, ecologists, engineers, and policy makers.

For this reason, several Slovenian organisations and institutes (Institut Josef Stefan, Palatinus, LUI, and CHEMASS) organised on 16 May 2024 the first Slovenian Nanoplastics Research Symposium in Ljubljana and hybrid, entitled “Microplastics fro Breakfast – From Micro to Nano”, to discuss, inform and learn all about nanoplastics research in Slovenia and beyond.