ABSTRACT
In 2016, a report commissioned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency found that tyre wear from road traffic and granules from artificial turf pitches were the two biggest microplastic sources in Swedish aquatic environments. Although the report’s figures were surrounded by uncertainty, they became artillery in a public debate that followed about microplastics and the environmental hazards tied to artificial turf pitches. Against this backdrop, this chapter aims to understand the use of scientification, here understood as a discursive strategy that attributes scientific nature to an issue, in the news media coverage of microplastics and artificial turf pitches. This chapter discusses the role of scientification in the discursive struggle over environmental risks, a strategy that, as shown, could be used to attach either certainty or uncertainty to an issue, as well as to create fallacious argumentation. This chapter points to the need that the media guards the discursive use of science when reporting on environmental risks, in order not to relativise or water down the authority of science in public discourse.
