Comments to "Degli-Innocenti, F. The pathology of hype, hyperbole and publication bias is creating an unwarranted concern towards biodegradable mulch films" [J. Hazard. Mater. 463 (2024) 132923]

NIZZETTO, Luca; Gilberto BINDA; Rachel HURLEY; Cecilie BAANN; Salla SELONEN; Sannakajsa VELMALA a Cornelis A.M. VAN GESTEL. Comments to "Degli-Innocenti, F. The pathology of hype, hyperbole and publication bias is creating an unwarranted concern towards biodegradable mulch films" [J. Hazard. Mater. 463 (2024) 132923]. Journal of Hazardous Materials. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science BV., 2024, roč. 471, June, s. 133690-133698. ISSN 0304-3894. Dostupné z: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133690.

Základní údaje

Originální název

Comments to "Degli-Innocenti, F. The pathology of hype, hyperbole and publication bias is creating an unwarranted concern towards biodegradable mulch films" [J. Hazard. Mater. 463 (2024) 132923]

Autoři

NIZZETTO, Luca; Gilberto BINDA; Rachel HURLEY; Cecilie BAANN; Salla SELONEN; Sannakajsa VELMALA a Cornelis A.M. VAN GESTEL

Vydání

Journal of Hazardous Materials, Amsterdam, Elsevier Science BV. 2024, 0304-3894

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Další údaje

Jazyk

angličtina

Typ výsledku

Článek v odborném periodiku

Obor

10511 Environmental sciences

Stát vydavatele

Nizozemské království

Utajení

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Odkazy

URL

Impakt faktor

Impact factor: 11.300

Označené pro přenos do RIV

Ano

Kód RIV

RIV/00216224:14310/24:00137919

Organizační jednotka

Přírodovědecká fakulta

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.133690

UT WoS

001239591500001

EID Scopus

2-s2.0-85192249472

Klíčová slova anglicky

Ecotoxicity; Microplastics; Risk assessment; Biodegradable plastic; Mulching film

Štítky

143180, rivok

Příznaky

Mezinárodní význam, Recenzováno

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Anotace

V originále

Some narratives present biodegradable plastic use for soil mulching practices in agriculture as "environmentally friendly" and "sustainable" alternatives to conventional plastics. To verify these narratives, environmental research recently started focusing on their potential impact on soil health, highlighting some concerns. The paper by Degli-Innocenti criticizes this unfolding knowledge arguing that it is affected by communication hypes, alarmistic writing and a focus on exposure scenarios purposedly crafted to yield negative effects. The quest of scientists for increased impact - the paper concludes - is the driver of such behavior. As scholars devoted to the safeguarding of scientific integrity, we set to verify whether this serious claim is grounded in evidence. Through a bibliometric analysis (using number of paper reads, citations and mentions on social media to measure the impact of publications) we found that: i) the papers pointed out by Degli-Innocenti as examples of biased works do not score higher than the median of similar publications; ii) the methodology used to support the conclusion is non-scientific; and iii) the paper does not fulfil the requirements concerning disclosure of conflicts of interests. We conclude that this paper represents a non-scientific opinion, potentially biased by a conflict of interest. We ask the paper to be clearly tagged as such, after the necessary corrections on the ethic section have been made. That being said, the paper does offer some useful insights for the definition of exposure scenarios in risk assessment. We comment and elaborate on these proposed models, hoping that this can help to advance the field.