Plastic Pollution Starts with You

The ubiquitous use of plastic in our modern world and inadequate management of plastic waste has led to increased contamination of freshwater, estuary and marine environments. Over the past two decades, researchers have documented and studied microplastics contamination of earth’s oceans. In recent years, scientists have turned their focus to study the microplastics in freshwater and land. Though oceans represent the largest sink of persistent plastic waste, an estimated 80% of the microplastics pollution in the oceans comes from the land. Stopping this pollution is essential.

The plastics flow to the oceans and lakes from our rivers and streams but begin their journey in our hands. Plastics are responsible for a vast array of ills from poisoning and injuring marine life, disrupting animal and human hormones, littering beaches and landscapes and clogging our waste streams and landfills. Scientists are on the verge of being able to study the impact of plastics on human health and determine if these nano-sized plastic particles are able to cross the blood-brain barrier. Plastics are threatening our planet and possibly mankind itself. It will take a multi-prong approach to reduce this threat.

Plastics are durable and designed to last. This can be a useful characteristic that has a place; however, plastic’s durability is also one of the characteristics that make plastic debris so damaging. Plastic items do not biodegrade like many other items do and never truly go away. Instead, as plastics are exposed to elements they break into smaller and smaller pieces. Unfortunately, once these small particles of plastic are in our waters, these microplastics are really difficult to remove. We all need to participate in the solution.

Prince William County Soil and Water Conservation District has named 2021: The Year of Plastic Pollution Awareness in Prince William County. Begin by following the “4Rs”— Refuse unnecessary single-use items, Reduce the amount of waste you produce by choosing products with less packaging; Reuse items and choose reusable items over disposable ones; and Recycle as much as possible— learn how to properly recycle your trash. Then teach this to your children by example.

During this difficult year of the pandemic, the Conservation District’s volunteers continued to engage in waterways cleanup (Adopt-A-Stream/pond), biological and chemical monitoring. The monitoring programs grew this past year even when the large regional river cleanups were cancelled last spring. There are outdoor socially distant opportunities for you to volunteer in your community. In 2020, despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, 586 Conservation District volunteers collected close to 17,440 pounds of debris from Prince William County waterways. These cleanups are great one day volunteer opportunities.

Also, in 2020, the Conservation District added chemical monitoring to its existing biological monitoring program. This upgrade in chemical monitoring added 91 new monitoring sites. There was increase in the number of water quality monitoring sites from 19 biological sites to 110 citizen science monitoring sites in Prince William County. All these programs also promote more water quality education among residents and students. This data collected in the program goes to the Virginia Save Our Streams (VASOS) and the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative databases (CMC) under supervision of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), helping to promote water quality awareness and education in our communities.

You can join the Conservation District Water Quality Volunteers. Contact; waterquality@pwswcd.org.