Autonomous Trash Interceptors, Floating Roombas: A Dutch inventor has created The Ocean Cleanup where they are using autonomous interceptors to remove trash after it has entered rivers. Autonomous Interceptors are large anchored floating structures that use river currents to collect trash, kind of like a Roomba in your house. One of these autonomous interceptors can remove about 110,000 pounds of trash in one day. That sounds like a lot of trash, but will do little to reduce how much trash is entering global waterways. The first area one of these interceptors was placed was in Jakarta (the capital of Indonesia, 110,000 pounds is less than 10% of the trash entering Jakarta Bay every day. Cleaning up existing trash is important, but it will not stop the flow of trash into our waterways. Jakarta Bay receives up to 700 tons of trash daily, it is impossible to remove that amount from the water daily. This overwhelming flow of trash is not unique to Jakarta, it happens across the globe, which is why we need policies that will stop plastic waste at its source. The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act would prohibit domestic plastic waste from being exported to foreign countries that do not have adequate infrastructure. You can read about the Ocean Cleanup autonomous interceptors here, and you can read about why all the water Roombas in the world will not solve water based trash problems in Jakarta or anywhere else in the world here.

(Plastic caught in a Fairfax County stream. Photo credit: Clean Fairfax)

Plastic On the Ocean Floor: The other shortfall of surface trash interceptors is that it does nothing to collect plastic waste that has made its way to the ocean floor. There is 30 thirty times as much plastic waste on the ocean floor than at the surface, with an estimated total of 14 million tons permanently lost to the ocean floor. We cannot trap all of the plastic waste before it reaches the ocean, and what is not caught will be there forever. This is why we need legislative policies that stop plastic waste at its source, if we don’t turn off the tap we will not stop the plastic crisis. You can read the entire study about plastics trapped on the ocean floor here. 

Reality of Bioplastics: There is a lot of talk about biodegradable and bioplastic alternatives to single use plastics. When these labels are put onto products they mislead customers and prevent the necessary step of reducing consumption. One of the most common of these products is Corn based plastic, distinguished with “PLA” on the product. While they are not made of fossil fuels, they do not magically go away when they are done being used, these products require an industrial composting facility and will not break down in a landfill. These PLA products will not biodegrade in your backyard composting pile, and industrial composting facilities are few and far between. In Fairfax County we do not have an industrial composting facility. Paper bottles have been gaining popularity, if they were purely made of recyclable paper that would be a good thing, but these paper bottles are filled with plastic lining. It is technically possible to strip away the plastic layers, but it doesn’t happen. These bottles end up being incinerated or left sitting in landfills. New materials for plastic products will help reduce the global plastic crisis, but it is not the answer. Ending the single use-throwaway lifestyle is the solution to the plastic crisis. You can read a more in depth breakdown of plastic alternatives from the New York Times here.

(Photo: White plastic pellets, known as nurdles, pile up along the Mississippi River bank in Algiers Point on Aug. 17, 2020. Tristan Baurick, Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate)

Update On the Mississippi Plastic Pellet Spill: A few weeks ago we wrote about a plastic nurdle (tiny plastic pellets that are the building blocks of plastic products) spill in the Mississippi River. Clean up of this spill was delayed because officials couldn’t decide who was responsible for clean up. Ultimately the responsibility was given to CMA CGM Group, who waited three weeks to hire a clean up crew. A new federal bill has been introduced that would prohibit the release of waste products in the plastic production supply chain from being released into US waters, and it would leave no question as to who is responsible for cleaning up these spills, the company who was responsible for the safekeeping of the product. You can read more about the plastic nurdle spill and the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act here.