The mission of the National Science Foundation (NSF) is “to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense...” Issues affecting marine environments, including water pollution prevention and control, directly impact the national health, prosperity, and welfare. Accordingly, NSF supports basic research that develops fundamental knowledge and engineering advances pertaining to the fate of marine debris, the impact of marine debris on ecosystems, and water pollution mitigation and control systems, and remediation of polluted environments. NSF’s Engineering Directorate is home to several programs and solicited opportunities that support research in these areas, including the Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sustainability, and nanoscale Interactions programs, and the Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation program’s solicitation on Engineering the Elimination of End-of-Life Plastics. NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, within the Geosciences Directorate, provides funding for basic research in all areas of the Ocean Sciences, including many that have direct and indirect implications for marine debris such as using marine debris as tracers of ocean currents, chemical reactions elucidated by the breakdown of marine debris, preservation of marine debris within ocean sediment cores, and changing ecosystem relationships in impacted areas.