In our short communication, we discuss the role of plastics and associated chemicals in the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental pollution from a multidisciplinary perspective. We utilize quantitative citation metrics (such as the number of papers, the number of reviews, and the fraction of reviews) to map the maturity of the research landscape for nano- and microplastics concerning their life cycle, release, fate, exposure, hazard, governance, and regulation. Based on the outcomes, we identify key research needs for a comprehensive hazard assessment of plastics and associated chemicals. This study was performed by an interest group at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ in Leipzig, Germany. We acknowledge financial support from the Helmholtz POF IV Topic 9 “Healthy Planet- towards a non-toxic environment” and Topic 5 “Landscapes of the future – preserving biological diversity, water resources, and ecosystems”. K.W.-P. and A.J. are part of the P-LEACH consortium that receives funding from the Helmholtz Association, Innovation Pool Funding of the Research Field Earth and Environment (https://www.ufz.de/p-leach) in support of the Research Program “Changing Earth – Sustaining our Future”. D.K. was partly funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme, under Grant Agreement number 965367 (PlasticsFatE). K.S. is grateful for funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation - project number 530364326).