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Australians ingest a credit card’s worth of plastic a week – so what’s it doing to us? Citizen science project mapping microplastics menace in hope of halting spread

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Head down to Sydney’s Manly Cove on a weekend, and you might see groups of people crouching diligently on the sand. They’re not searching for shells or bloodworms, but something just as visually striking, not least because it shouldn’t be there: coloured pieces of hard plastic, fragments of polystyrene foam and fibres from fishing line.For the last three years, a group of volunteers has been surveying the beach each month for microplastics, as part of the Australian Microplastics Assessment Project.Colloquially known as Ausmap, the citizen science project has collected more than 3.5m pieces of microplastic from more than 300 beaches around the country, ranging from Thursday Island in the north to Bruny Island, off Tasmania’s south-east coast.Extreme heat in oceans ‘passed point of no return’ in 2014Read moreVolunteers collect plastics between 1mm and 5mm in length; pellets, fibres and fragments are meticulously sorted and documented. “That’s what we can see easily in our sieves,” Ausmap’s program director, Dr Michelle Blewit, says.“Microplastic doesn’t always refer to things that are microscopic,” she says. “Obviously it breaks up further and further … the smaller it gets, then there’s more chance of it being ingested by animals.”Blewitt, a marine scientist, says more than 8,500 people have been involved in the project since its launch in 2018. Its goal is to quantify the scale of microplastic pollution across Australia, and help address the growing problem.‘It can block the gut’Microplastics – any type of plastic less than 5mm in length – are virtually everywhere. They are found in the most remote places on Earth, from the world’s deepest oceanic trench to its most pristine mountains. They are in the air we breathe, the tap water we drink, and the food we eat. They have been found in human placenta and poo. On average, we ingest about one credit card’s worth of plastic a week, according to 2019 Australian analysis.“There are actually more microplastics on the seabed floor than floating on the ocean surface,” says Dr Denise Hardesty, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO.The presence of microplastics in aquatic environments doesn’t necessarily equate to harm to wildlife, Hardesty says. But there is a growing body of evidence showing that microplastics have negative impacts on at least some marine organisms.“For a really small animal organism, it can block the gut, it can make it so that an organism doesn’t feed as efficiently,” Hardesty says. “It can affect its reproduction, it can affect its lifecycle and trajectory.”Microplastics have been found to make mussels lose their grip, and to alter the behaviour of fish – one Australian study of damselfish found they were likely to take more risks and die earlier.Also of concern is the accumulation of microplastics in animals further up the food chain. “We even find microplastics in plankton, which are really at the base of the food chain and help keep our oceans healthy,” Hardesty says. “We have everything from very small fish to very large whales that eat plankton.”Plastics alone are one problem, but then there’s also the chemicals with which they interact. “Some of the plastics out there are quite porous,” Blewitt says. “Once out there in the environment, they can be attracted like a magnet to a whole bunch of other chemicals.”A day at the beach: ‘I got a weird feeling that this dolphin was trying to tell me something’Read more“If an animal consumes these plastics, then they’re not only getting a dose of the plastic itself … but also whatever contaminants are attached to those plastics as well.”Scientists are also concerned about interactions between plastic pollution and global heating on marine populations. A recent University of Sydney study found that fish grow slower ​​when exposed to both the industrial chemical bisphenol A – a common compound used in plastics manufacturing – and higher temperatures.“Discarded plastics – as they break down, they leach BPA that’s been used in their manufacture,” Prof Frank Seebacher, one of the study’s authors, says. “So wherever you have lots of manufacturing plants, lots of plastic pollution, you will find reasonably high levels of BPA.”03:32‘In the dark’ on health effectsWhat effects microplastics have on human health is still contentious. “We obviously can’t feed plastic to humans,” Blewitt says. “Health implications will probably rear their ugly head in the years to come.”Prof Andreas Suhrbier, who leads the inflammation biology group at QIMR Berghofer, says while microplastics have been found to damage human cells under lab conditions, compelling evidence to date has been scarce.“There is no consistent common understanding of if and what microplastic consumption would affect human health,” he says.Suhrbier believes new research of his may provide a clue. A recent study his team conducted in mice found animals that had ingested microplastics did not show any accumulation in internal organs, nor any significant changes in their microbiome.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningHowever, when they were exposed to a virus that resulted in arthritis, the mice who had eaten microplastics had joint inflammation for a significantly longer period. The team surmised that the microplastics activated immune cells that resulted in the inflammation.The research squares with a separate study, published in December, which found significantly higher levels of microplastics in the faeces of people who had inflammatory bowel disease – Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – than people who didn’t. The researchers also concluded there was a correlation between the concentration of microplastics in the gut and the severity of disease.“Our emerging hypothesis is that plastic in the gut causes some level of inflammation,” Suhrbier says.Less is known about the health effects of even smaller plastic particles, ​​nanoplastics, at sizes ranging between 1 nanometer and 1 micron.Dr Cheng Fang, a senior research fellow at the University of Newcastle, says in theory, nanosized particles can very easily “pass through the digestive system into the body, and can be transported by blood”.His research has estimated that whipper snippers generate thousands of microplastics and billions of nanoplastics each minute when cutting grass. In January, scientists reported detecting nanoplastic pollution in polar regions for the first time.“[We’re] really in the dark at this moment [about the health effects],” Fang says.Tackling a big little problem“Plastics and microplastics are ubiquitous,” Hardesty says. “They’re in our waterways, they’re in our stormwater drains, they’re being shed by tyres from cars, they’re being shed from carpet fibres in people’s homes.”She emphasises the importance of prevention at the source, citing the need for reducing reliance on single-use plastic. “People focus on microplastics, but most microplastics start out as larger plastics,” she says. “It’s actually starting with changing some of our consumption behaviour, [and] plastics manufacturing all up.”The kindest cut: the Australians fighting to save humpback whales tangled in fishing netsRead more“We have power with what and how we choose to purchase,” Hardesty says. “Within Australia, we don’t need to buy bottled water.”“Your can lobby your government … You can support buying in bulk and … speak up against some of the very hard to recycle items, like soft plastics, multi-layered laminates.”By identifying microplastic hotspots, Ausmap is beginning to implement litter reduction strategies in certain coastal areas. They have installed nets to capture waste from stormwater outlets, “to identify which subcatchment is bringing down which kind of debris”, Blewitt says.The project has identified Dee Why lagoon, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, as a microplastic hotspot, with an estimated 3.1m pieces entering the area yearly. “We were able to identify that nurdles – which are the resin pellets, the basis of plastic when it gets made in its base form – were coming down on one particular catchment,” Blewitt says.With support from the NSW Environment Protection Authority, Ausmap has developed a micro-litter reduction strategy, which it is piloting in three catchments, Blewitt says.“Hopefully we’ll be able to use this framework to be able to help identify where those potential hotspots might be … and then how do they stop it within their local catchment before it lands in the waterways as well.”TopicsMarine lifePollutionWildlifefeaturesReuse this content

Australians ingest a credit card’s worth of plastic a week – so what’s it doing to us? Citizen science project mapping microplastics menace in hope of halting spread

Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing
Head down to Sydney’s Manly Cove on a weekend, and you might see groups of people crouching diligently on the sand. They’re not searching for shells or bloodworms, but something just as visually striking, not least because it shouldn’t be there: coloured pieces of hard plastic, fragments of polystyrene foam and fibres from fishing line.For the last three years, a group of volunteers has been surveying the beach each month for microplastics, as part of the Australian Microplastics Assessment Project.Colloquially known as Ausmap, the citizen science project has collected more than 3.5m pieces of microplastic from more than 300 beaches around the country, ranging from Thursday Island in the north to Bruny Island, off Tasmania’s south-east coast.Extreme heat in oceans ‘passed point of no return’ in 2014Read moreVolunteers collect plastics between 1mm and 5mm in length; pellets, fibres and fragments are meticulously sorted and documented. “That’s what we can see easily in our sieves,” Ausmap’s program director, Dr Michelle Blewit, says.“Microplastic doesn’t always refer to things that are microscopic,” she says. “Obviously it breaks up further and further … the smaller it gets, then there’s more chance of it being ingested by animals.”Blewitt, a marine scientist, says more than 8,500 people have been involved in the project since its launch in 2018. Its goal is to quantify the scale of microplastic pollution across Australia, and help address the growing problem.‘It can block the gut’Microplastics – any type of plastic less than 5mm in length – are virtually everywhere. They are found in the most remote places on Earth, from the world’s deepest oceanic trench to its most pristine mountains. They are in the air we breathe, the tap water we drink, and the food we eat. They have been found in human placenta and poo. On average, we ingest about one credit card’s worth of plastic a week, according to 2019 Australian analysis.“There are actually more microplastics on the seabed floor than floating on the ocean surface,” says Dr Denise Hardesty, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO.The presence of microplastics in aquatic environments doesn’t necessarily equate to harm to wildlife, Hardesty says. But there is a growing body of evidence showing that microplastics have negative impacts on at least some marine organisms.“For a really small animal organism, it can block the gut, it can make it so that an organism doesn’t feed as efficiently,” Hardesty says. “It can affect its reproduction, it can affect its lifecycle and trajectory.”Microplastics have been found to make mussels lose their grip, and to alter the behaviour of fish – one Australian study of damselfish found they were likely to take more risks and die earlier.Also of concern is the accumulation of microplastics in animals further up the food chain. “We even find microplastics in plankton, which are really at the base of the food chain and help keep our oceans healthy,” Hardesty says. “We have everything from very small fish to very large whales that eat plankton.”Plastics alone are one problem, but then there’s also the chemicals with which they interact. “Some of the plastics out there are quite porous,” Blewitt says. “Once out there in the environment, they can be attracted like a magnet to a whole bunch of other chemicals.”A day at the beach: ‘I got a weird feeling that this dolphin was trying to tell me something’Read more“If an animal consumes these plastics, then they’re not only getting a dose of the plastic itself … but also whatever contaminants are attached to those plastics as well.”Scientists are also concerned about interactions between plastic pollution and global heating on marine populations. A recent University of Sydney study found that fish grow slower ​​when exposed to both the industrial chemical bisphenol A – a common compound used in plastics manufacturing – and higher temperatures.“Discarded plastics – as they break down, they leach BPA that’s been used in their manufacture,” Prof Frank Seebacher, one of the study’s authors, says. “So wherever you have lots of manufacturing plants, lots of plastic pollution, you will find reasonably high levels of BPA.”03:32‘In the dark’ on health effectsWhat effects microplastics have on human health is still contentious. “We obviously can’t feed plastic to humans,” Blewitt says. “Health implications will probably rear their ugly head in the years to come.”Prof Andreas Suhrbier, who leads the inflammation biology group at QIMR Berghofer, says while microplastics have been found to damage human cells under lab conditions, compelling evidence to date has been scarce.“There is no consistent common understanding of if and what microplastic consumption would affect human health,” he says.Suhrbier believes new research of his may provide a clue. A recent study his team conducted in mice found animals that had ingested microplastics did not show any accumulation in internal organs, nor any significant changes in their microbiome.
Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning
Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morningHowever, when they were exposed to a virus that resulted in arthritis, the mice who had eaten microplastics had joint inflammation for a significantly longer period. The team surmised that the microplastics activated immune cells that resulted in the inflammation.The research squares with a separate study, published in December, which found significantly higher levels of microplastics in the faeces of people who had inflammatory bowel disease – Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis – than people who didn’t. The researchers also concluded there was a correlation between the concentration of microplastics in the gut and the severity of disease.“Our emerging hypothesis is that plastic in the gut causes some level of inflammation,” Suhrbier says.Less is known about the health effects of even smaller plastic particles, ​​nanoplastics, at sizes ranging between 1 nanometer and 1 micron.Dr Cheng Fang, a senior research fellow at the University of Newcastle, says in theory, nanosized particles can very easily “pass through the digestive system into the body, and can be transported by blood”.His research has estimated that whipper snippers generate thousands of microplastics and billions of nanoplastics each minute when cutting grass. In January, scientists reported detecting nanoplastic pollution in polar regions for the first time.“[We’re] really in the dark at this moment [about the health effects],” Fang says.Tackling a big little problem“Plastics and microplastics are ubiquitous,” Hardesty says. “They’re in our waterways, they’re in our stormwater drains, they’re being shed by tyres from cars, they’re being shed from carpet fibres in people’s homes.”She emphasises the importance of prevention at the source, citing the need for reducing reliance on single-use plastic. “People focus on microplastics, but most microplastics start out as larger plastics,” she says. “It’s actually starting with changing some of our consumption behaviour, [and] plastics manufacturing all up.”The kindest cut: the Australians fighting to save humpback whales tangled in fishing netsRead more“We have power with what and how we choose to purchase,” Hardesty says. “Within Australia, we don’t need to buy bottled water.”“Your can lobby your government … You can support buying in bulk and … speak up against some of the very hard to recycle items, like soft plastics, multi-layered laminates.”By identifying microplastic hotspots, Ausmap is beginning to implement litter reduction strategies in certain coastal areas. They have installed nets to capture waste from stormwater outlets, “to identify which subcatchment is bringing down which kind of debris”, Blewitt says.The project has identified Dee Why lagoon, in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, as a microplastic hotspot, with an estimated 3.1m pieces entering the area yearly. “We were able to identify that nurdles – which are the resin pellets, the basis of plastic when it gets made in its base form – were coming down on one particular catchment,” Blewitt says.With support from the NSW Environment Protection Authority, Ausmap has developed a micro-litter reduction strategy, which it is piloting in three catchments, Blewitt says.“Hopefully we’ll be able to use this framework to be able to help identify where those potential hotspots might be … and then how do they stop it within their local catchment before it lands in the waterways as well.”TopicsMarine lifePollutionWildlifefeaturesReuse this content

Coastal communities are tired of paying to clean up plastic and debris from the B.C. shellfish industry to protect the marine environment, stewardship groups say. The amount of garbage being retrieved from beaches in areas where shellfish aquaculture is concentrated grows year after year, and there’s little apparent enforcement by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to deal with the issue, said Dorrie Woodward, chair of the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards (ADIMS). The association has organized beach cleanups for 18 years in the Baynes Sound area, a narrow channel between Denman and Vancouver islands where more than half the province’s shellfish production takes place, Woodward said.Get top stories in your inbox.Our award-winning journalists bring you the news that impacts you, Canada, and the world. Don’t miss out.Last year, the stewardship group expanded the cleanup, with other community partners such as the K’ómoks Guardian Watchmen, to cover 180 kilometres of shoreline in the region after getting funding through the province’s Clean Coast, Clean Waters initiative. Approximately 38 metric tonnes of garbage was hauled off the beaches over the course of a month and 90 per cent was related to the shellfish aquaculture industry, she said. Plastic shellfish trays, buoys, shoreline predator prevention netting, rope, and Styrofoam used for float platforms that disintegrate into tiny irretrievable pieces are some of the greatest problems. The trash harms salmon habitat in estuaries, and poses entanglement risks to birds or other marine mammals, such as seals, sea lions and whales, Woodward added. Much of the trash is the result of poorly secured gear from shellfish leases washing into the ocean, or a result of sloppy farming practices and maintenance, or derelict operations left to break up and float away, she said.Ocean polluters should pay for cleanup The vast majority of the plastic garbage pulled off the shores during a cleanup of Baynes Sound on the B.C. coast came from the shellfish sector, according to the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards. Photo courtesy of ADIMSPreviously, the stewardship group raised the funds or got donations in kind to do the cleanup, but communities or taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill to deal with the shellfish industry’s mess, Woodward said. “If this were an oil spill, the government wouldn’t be paying for this,” said Dorrie Woodward of the Association for Denman Island Marine Stewards on using tax dollars to clean up the ongoing flow of plastic debris from the shellfish industry. The federal government committed $8 million to its ghost gear recovery program on the country’s coasts, and B.C. has dedicated $18 million to its shoreline cleanups. “We’re fed up. Polluters should pay,” Woodward said.“As a marine stewardship group, of course, we would totally like to see no more plastics in the ocean,” she said. “But those putting plastic in the ocean should be responsible for getting them back out.” It’s comparable to cleaning up after other environmental disasters caused by industry, Woodward added.“If this were an oil spill, the government wouldn’t be paying for this,” she said. A significant amount of the marine debris collected this year was diverted for recycling, but the system has limits, and a significant amount of waste is directed to landfills or left to accumulate on beaches. It appears DFO is prioritizing the shellfish industry over the health of the marine ecosystem, she added.Plastics and other marine debris from the shellfish industry can entangle birds and other sea creatures that share the marine habitat. Photo courtesy ADIMSShellfish growers association determined to address debris problemMarine debris from the shellfish sector is an undeniable problem that needs resolving, said Nico Prins, the new executive director of the BC Shellfish Growers Association (BCSGA). “The fact is, there is too much debris going into the water,” Prins said. “It’s something I don’t agree with and I don’t like, and quite frankly, it’s not necessary.” There are a number of relatively easy measures growers can take immediately, such as putting up fencing on floating platforms to keep plastic gear from being knocked into the water by stormy weather or sea lions and other animals clambering around floating shellfish docks.Or even better, excess equipment or trash could be stowed safely onshore.The association, which represents 60 per cent of producers in the province, voluntarily launched a shellfish farm environmental program (SHEP) in March to curb the problem, he said. In addition to having a significant environmental impact and being a source of conflict with neighbouring communities, the BCSGA board estimates it spends 50 per cent of its time dealing with debris issues. The program’s goals include helping members meet a set of new rules by DFO to prevent marine debris that will come into force in stages by 2023. The regulations will act as some of the conditions necessary to obtain and operate a shellfish licence. DFO enforcement of new rules critical Shellfish operators will soon have to enclose any Styrofoam floats in a hard casing, inspect and dive beneath their platforms to retrieve debris annually, mark all their gear with identifying data, and self-report annually to demonstrate compliance or risk fines or the loss of their licence. It’s always been a condition for a licence to keep debris out of the water, but the specific rules and making gear identifiable will hopefully make enforcement easier, said Prins. The growers association pitches in during community cleanups, and plans to start a public access database with reports of equipment or debris, so the association can facilitate pick-ups and identify debris hot spots or problem operators. By way of a carrot, the association is developing a sustainable certification seal for growers that meet the debris regulations. The association doesn’t have authority to enforce the new regulations, but it will consider various sanctions, including ineligibility for BCSFA membership, Prins said. But ultimately, the success of the new regulations is still dependent on DFO enforcement, he said.“Our main goal is to assist our members to adhere to the condition of licence and solve their (debris) problems,” he said. “But we do need the agency with the authority to go and enforce the conditions of licensing. And in fact, we welcome it.” Abandoned shellfish farms a source of pollutionThe 2021 coastal cleanup in the Discovery Islands found abandoned shellfish farms were a big source of garbage. Photo courtesy Spirit of the West Adventures The problem with shellfish debris is not limited to Baynes Sound, said the co-ordinator of the shoreline cleanup in the Discovery Islands, which ended in December.Plastics from the sector made up at least half of the 50 tonnes of debris pulled from the region’s beaches, said Breanne Quesnel of Spirit of the West Adventures, the tourism operation that secured funding for the cleanup. Abandoned or derelict shellfish farms were a big source of debris on the shores of Quadra and Cortes islands, said Quesnel. It was difficult to determine from provincial and federal websites who was responsible for a shellfish operation, and if it was active or not, she said. DFO and the BCSGA did try to assist the cleanup operation, identifying leases and what cleanup crews could remove, she said. “But some sites are showing as active leases in the government system, [and] there’s nobody really responsible for them,” Quesnel said. “People have literally just completely left their operation, and walked away with docks and floats in the water and onshore.” As a marine tour operator, Quesnel said her company must pay a deposit to use Crown land, which is forfeited and used to address problems if she doesn’t follow guidelines. She’d like to see a deposit system or accountability measures in place to ensure cleanups take place if rules aren’t met by shellfish operations. Many of the active shellfish farmers in the region are working to solve the plastic problem, Quesnel said. “I don’t want to tarnish them all,” she said. “But a portion of folks aren’t engaged, and we’re finding stuff that’s definitely aquaculture materials coming from somewhere. “And DFO doesn’t seem to be stepping up.” Balance must be struck between industry and environmentMP Lisa Marie Barron, NDP critic of fisheries, agreed a fix is necessary. The sector produced nearly 6,700 tonnes of shellfish valued at $20 million in 2020.“It’s an important industry for many of our coastal communities,” said Barron, who represents Nanaimo-Ladysmith on Vancouver Island“But we also have to balance that with protecting our oceans, in particular when it comes to plastic pollution.” The new regulations and government funds for cleanups are a good step, but more accountability is still needed to stop the flow of debris into ocean waters. “Organizations that do this front-line work want to see a process in place where we’re not having to be so reactionary,” she said. There also needs to be more exploration of alternatives for plastics in the sector, she added. “We need to be pushing the government to work with industry and those on the ground in our coastal communities to help this industry become waste-free,” she said. Plastic debris from the shellfish industry, pictured here on Quadra Island, regularly washes onto the shores of coastal communities during winter weather. Photo by JP Wieghardt Marine debris a federal priorityReducing plastic waste and marine debris as well as protecting and regenerating Canada’s oceans are priorities for the federal government and Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray, said Murray’s press secretary Claire Teichman in an email. DFO’s ghost gear program has successfully removed 739 tonnes of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear from the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Teichman said. Under the same initiative, the BCSGA got $350,000 in 2020 to conduct dives to retrieve accumulated debris from the seabed under floating shellfish operations, resulting in the cleanup of 27 sites and the removal of 27 tonnes of garbage to date. The association also received $1.1 million for the wide-scale replacement of Styrofoam floats on shellfish platforms with more environmentally friendly alternatives through the Fisheries and Aquaculture Clean Technology Adoption Program — which also funds aquaculture operators to test late-stage clean technologies, systems or processes.However, Murray’s office did not clarify if DFO plans to dedicate more resources to inspections or enforcement of pending regulations in addition to subsidizing the industry’s cleanup. DFO has failed to monitor or penalize problem shellfish operators for decades, Woodward said, noting repeated beach cleanups are just Band-Aid solutions.Paying producers to deal with their trash on the public dime without any significant enforcement will only perpetuate the pollution problem, she said. “It’s just a new revenue stream for the industry,” Woodward said. “Why should our community be picking it up just because we don’t want to be stumbling over their debris on the beach, and because we care about all the other creatures that live here, too?” Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer

KEY POINTSResearchers used remote sensing to spot plastics on the coastPlastics can be detected despite ‘shape, color or condition’Plastic debris is a ‘globally relevant environmental challenge’: ResearchersA team of scientists utilized satellite technology to find plastic pollution in coastal areas. Their method helped detect plastic that cannot be visibly seen in satellite images.Plastic debris in the marine environment is a “globally relevant problem,” with an estimated eight million tons of debris entering the waters each year, noted the researchers of a study published in Remote Sensing.”At the moment, plastic debris are tracked by passing vessels notifying authorities,” Jenna Guffogg, the study’s lead author and Ph.D. Candidate at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) University, said in a university news release. “Using satellites will allow more frequent and reliable observations.”According to the researchers, most research using remote sensing to detect debris focus on the ones that are floating in the open water. However, plastics floating on water or are partially submerged tend to have “low reflectance.” Beaches, on the other hand, also “present challenges that are unique from other parts of the marine environment.” It’s also easier to remove the debris on beaches than in the oceans, Guffogg said.

Remote sensing is the process in which the physical attributes of an area are detected by measuring the reflected and emitted radiation from a distance, such as via a satellite or an aircraft. For their work, the researchers used sensing equipment on the beaches of Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands to determine how different types of plastic reflect infra-red light, RMIT noted.”On the beaches of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Henderson Island, in the Indian and Pacific oceans, respectively, a variety of consumer and industrial plastics are found in high concentrations: single-use plastic bottles, containers, unidentified fragments of hard plastics, foams, soft plastic films and industrial fishing debris,” the researchers wrote.They used “spectral library plots” to compare the “reflectance” of weathered and virgin plastics and found “little difference” in the results. According to the university, this means that plastics can be detected remotely “despite the shape, color or condition of the plastic.”The researchers found that about 2-8% of an area must be covered in plastic, depending on the polymer, before it can be “spectrally separated” from an area that only contains sand. Through the method that they used, the researchers were able to spot the plastic waste on beaches that aren’t visible on typical satellite images, the university noted. By knowing where the plastic waste is, efforts can then be focused on those areas to clean them up.In the coming years, satellites with better remote sensing capabilities are set to be launched, Simon Jones of RMIT, the study’s co-author, said in the news release. These could then help improve the technology for better, perhaps global, detection.”We’re developing ways to use these new satellites in the fight against marine waste,” Jones said.”Stopping plastic from entering the ocean is a global challenge,” Guffogg added. “But if we can find and remove them quickly, it’s the next best thing.”

Nanoplastics that originated in London, Paris, and Munich were found high up in the remote Austrian Alps.
[Source Photo: Reyaz Limalia/Getty Images]
By

After years of largely neglecting the buildup of plastic waste in Earth’s environment, the U.N. Environment Assembly will meet in February and March in the hopes of drafting the first international treaty controlling global plastics pollution.Discarded plastic is currently killing marine life, threatening food security, contributing to climate change, damaging economies, and dissolving into microplastics that contaminate land, water, the atmosphere and even the human bloodstream.The U.N. parties will debate how comprehensive the treaty they write will be: Should it, for example, protect just the oceans or the whole planet? Should it focus mainly on reuse/recycling, or control plastics manufacture and every step of the supply chain and waste stream?The U.S. has changed its position from opposition to such a treaty under President Donald Trump, to support under President Joe Biden, but has yet to articulate exactly what it wants in an agreement. While environmental NGOs are pushing for a comprehensive treaty, plastics companies, who say they support regulation, likely will want to limit the treaty’s scope. At the end of February, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) will tackle a challenging task: the creation of a landmark treaty to control plastic pollution worldwide. While most nations have agreed to participate, the scope and timing of such an agreement aren’t settled, with many countries, environmental NGOs, and the plastics industry expressing widely different ideas as to what should be included.
But with media images rife of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and of the world’s most remote seaside beaches drowning in waste, just about everyone agrees it’s time to act: “The ever-increasing growth in the amount of plastics produced has led to a significant plastic waste generation [problem] that has outpaced society’s ability to manage it effectively,” a U.N. baseline report warned in 2020.
Tallying all sources, “Worldwide, at least 8.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year — the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic into the sea every minute,” concluded a key report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released in December. In 2016, the U.S. generated more plastic waste than any other country, exceeding that of all European Union (EU) member states combined, the report stated.
Discarded plastic waste on a city street. At least 8.8 million metric tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year — the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck of plastic into the sea every minute, according to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Image by Justin Bautista via Unsplash.
The U.S. Congress commissioned that NAS study, which suggested that the United States establish a national strategy to cope with plastic waste by the end of 2022, with an assessment of progress by the end of 2025. The U.S. currently lags behind the EU and Canada in setting plastic environmental guidelines, acknowledges Margaret Spring, who chaired the academy committee that produced the report. China banned plastic waste imports in 2018 and set a plan to phase out certain plastics by 2025.
While the NAS study relied on U.S. federal data to reach its conclusions and focused on oceans, its experts agree that the plastics problem extends well beyond Earth’s seas, and that any initiative aimed at controlling plastic waste must be based on a global methodology and cooperation in order to succeed.
Figures differ as to which nations pollute the most with plastics, depending on whether production or use is counted, or whether the EU is considered as one entity. China, for instance, accounts for about 30% of plastic production, but only about 20% of global use. Globally, most plastics are manufactured and used in China, Western Europe and the U.S.
“This [NAS] report synthesizes what knowledgeable people already knew,” Spring said. She added: “What haven’t been set [to date] are global goals,” something that a U.N. plastics treaty should address.
How much single-use plastic waste do countries generate? Single-use plastic waste generated per person in selected countries in 2019 in kilograms. Image courtesy of Statista.
A runaway plastics crisis
Estimates vary, but U.N. figures assert that humanity uses 500 billion plastic bags and 17 million plastic oil barrels annually. Some 13 million metric tons of plastic wind up in the oceans every year, and plastic kills 100,000 marine animals annually.
Another U.N. report, released in October, warned that “plastic production has risen exponentially in the last decades. It now amounts to some 400 million tonnes per year. Yet only an estimated 12% of plastics produced have been incinerated and only an estimated 9% have been recycled. The remainder has either been disposed of in landfills or released into the environment, including the oceans. Without meaningful action, flows of plastic waste into aquatic ecosystems are expected to nearly triple from around 11 million tonnes in 2016 to around 29 million tonnes in 2040.”
According to a 2019 report from the Center for International Environmental Law, all this plastic is also contributing heavily to climate change. “At current levels, greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic lifecycle threaten the ability of the global community to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C [2.7°F]. With the petrochemical and plastic industries planning a massive expansion in production, the problem is on track to get much worse,” says the report.
Nations aside, it’s hard to know which of the world’s companies generate the most discarded plastic. Break Free from Plastic (BFP), an NGO and self-described “global movement envisioning a future free from plastic pollution,” releases an annual estimate based on pieces of trash volunteers collect that can be identified with a specific company. By that measure, junk food packaging is a huge part of the problem, with top polluters at last count being Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, Nestlé, and Proctor & Gamble.
But the BFP estimate — even though it accounts for brand-name trash in 45 countries — is clearly just that, as it only tallies identifiable garbage that can be found, not what ends up in landfills, incinerators, or bodies of water, such as monofilament and bits of fishing nets. Nor do the rankings consider plastic manufacturers. (Full disclosure: This story’s author holds retirement account stock in the Coca-Cola Company.)
Plastic pollution and juvenile fish in Indonesia. Plastic waste ingested by, or entangled around, aquatic life, is often fatal. Sea turtles, for example, can mistake plastic bags for edible jellyfish. Research suggests that 52% of the world’s turtles have eaten plastic waste, according to WWF. Image by Naja Bertolt Jensen via Unsplash.
Discarded plastic, ranging from food containers to fishing gear, is washing up on shores around the globe, getting eaten by marine life, interfering with navigation, and dissolving into microplastic waste that works its way up the food chain and even into the atmosphere where it may be influencing climate change.
“Plastic pollution can now be found everywhere, from the remote shores of the Arctic to the deepest parts of the ocean. Up to 12 million tonnes of plastic leak into the marine environment annually, harming biodiversity and posing a threat to food security, sustainability and human health,” the Environmental Investigation Agency reported in 2020.
A U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) report issued last October cited the urgent need for a waste treaty. “Plastics are the largest, most harmful and most persistent fraction of marine litter, accounting for at least 85% of total marine waste,” it noted, adding that, “while we have the know-how [to dispose of plastics properly], we need the political will and urgent action by government to tackle the mounting crisis.”
Tropical paradise? A beach cluttered with waste. Unseen are microplastics mingled with sand, which could have a variety of as-yet-unforeseen impacts. Research is underway, for example, to determine whether microplastics mingled with sand could be raising sea turtle nesting beach temperatures. Because the sex of sea turtles is temperature dependent, more females are hatching as global warming (and possibly microplastics) push temperatures higher on the world’s nesting beaches. Today, females outnumber males three to one at many global sites. Image by Dustin Woodhouse via Unsplash.
Challenging negotiations ahead
The UNEA, founded in 2014, meets biennially in Nairobi, Kenya. At previous UNEA assemblies, delegates debated the need for an international plastics agreement but couldn’t agree on a way forward. But international momentum got a big boost in 2019 when the Nordic Council — an association of parliaments from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland, an autonomous region in Finland — called for creating such an agreement.
As a result, featured prominently on the docket for this year’s assembly, slated to run from Feb. 28 to March 2, is the development of a framework for the world’s first ever plastics treaty. The assembly will focus especially on what should be included — and not included.
Past negotiated U.N. environmental treaties cover everything from transboundary air pollution to international transport of hazardous waste (including plastics) and industrial accidents — but they may not provide much groundwork for the plastics treaty process. “None of the existing treaties, each of which has its own specific focus, is a suitable basis for the comprehensive discussions which are necessary to contain and combat the plastic soup,” according to the Plastic Soup Foundation, an Amsterdam-based NGO dedicated to keeping the world’s waters free of plastic.
The UNEA will be considering two competing drafts to arrive at a framework. A more comprehensive one, sponsored by Rwanda and Peru, would try to cope with plastics pollution worldwide from production to disposal. The other, sponsored by Japan, focuses narrowly on oceans and end-of-use.
As representatives of the world’s nations gather this month, plastic manufacturers and oil companies (which provide the petroleum-based raw materials to make plastics), will be taking an interest and want to participate in hopes of influencing outcomes.
Plastic heaped beside a river. Much of this waste will likely be transported downstream into estuaries and oceans where over time it could degrade into microplastics, whose environmental impacts we have only begun to investigate. Image by Alexander Schimmeck via Unsplash.
The plastics industry seems willing to support an accord — so long as it doesn’t interfere too much with business. The Washington, D.C.-based Plastics Industry Association gave Mongabay a statement reading in part: “We support international cooperation to eliminate plastic leakage into the environment. We encourage solutions that are flexible and relevant to regional context and treat the plastics industry as experts and partners. We caution against heavy-handed restrictions that impede the ability of materials to flow around the world, especially in a time of stressed supply chains. Furthermore, we believe that production or consumption limits on plastics is the wrong approach and would encourage the use of products that are inferior from a performance or sustainability profile and result in major economic harm globally.”
Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics for the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a lobbying group that represents plastic manufacturers, also provided Mongabay with a statement, writing that “ACC fully supports the negotiation of a treaty to eliminate plastic waste and accelerate the transition to a more circular economy.” Last September, ACC, along with the International Council of Chemical Associations and the World Plastics Council, agreed on a series of principles for an agreement, including national “flexibility and support” to meet individual nations’ needs, improve “access to waste collection,” and innovate design and recycling.
ACC got part of its wish in December 2020 when the U.S. Congress passed the Save Our Seas Act 2.0, a follow-up on legislation passed in 2018 to protect oceans from plastic waste. Corporations didn’t oppose the bill and President Donald Trump signed it, as it didn’t regulate industry but merely called for more government-sponsored research into recycling, reuse, and making less hazardous products. (Not surprisingly, industry was glad to let the government pay for research rather than spend its own money for that purpose.)
Congress, meanwhile, has not acted on the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act introduced in the current and previous legislative sessions. That bill would put limits on single-use plastic production and add requirements for reuse and recycling.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) suggested in 2020 that a “UN treaty on plastic pollution would benefit businesses as well as the environment. It can create a level playing field across the plastic value chain,” largely by standardizing compliance costs and activities, the NGO suggested.
Plastic in the world: Plastic production by region in 2019 (in percent). Image courtesy of Statista.
The parties prepare
The European Union and 48 countries signed on to an agreement at a ministerial conference last September endorsing the need for a plastics control treaty, stating: “no country can adequately address the various aspects of this challenge alone; hence there is a need to commit to establishing a balanced framework for international cooperation that includes coordinated actions to address the negative impacts of plastic along its life cycle, [and] taking into account local and national circumstances as well as specific needs of developing countries.” At last count, 81 nations have signed on including the U.K. and all EU members, but not the U.S. or China. And according to the WWF Global Plastic Navigator, 161 countries have expressed interest.
Though the U.S. hasn’t signed this U.N. document, the administration of President Joe Biden has agreed to participate in the treaty creation, reversing the Trump administration’s position. (Before the change in presidents, the U.S., one of the biggest plastics polluters, was one of the few countries to actively oppose regulation, which helped set back the international negotiating process.)
One reason for Biden’s delayed signature, and the administration’s failure as of mid-January 2022 to articulate a global plastics control policy: it’s complicated. Twelve federal agencies play a role in determining the U.S. position, ranging from the State Department to the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The State Department said in a statement to Mongabay that it “is premature to discuss” matters such as the U.S. position on enforcement, or the degree to which an accord should focus on ocean or all plastic pollution. But the statement indicated the U.S. wants some flexibility, saying “We need to be innovative and account for different national circumstances” and “ensure that countries most in need have the financial resources to implement potential solutions.”
The State Department says it is reviewing NAS findings and recommendations, while also indicating that it wants the agreement to consider all aspects of the plastic lifecycle, noting that it wants countries to consider “circular economy approaches that reduce the lifecycle impacts of plastic” and that some nations “may include restrictions on plastic production and consumption.”
A reminder to modern urbanites: The massive amounts of plastic waste we discard today will live on in the environment for centuries. Image by Jon Tyson on Unsplash.
In a January blog post, Monica Medina, assistant secretary for the department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, listed her four priorities for that bureau, including “seeking global solutions to address the onslaught of plastic pollution that spills into our waterways and oceans and harms biodiversity.”
Many international environmental groups are pushing hard for a tough U.S. stance. “We’ve been convincing hundreds of governments, corporations, NGOs and other stakeholders to try to move the conversation forward,” said John Hocevar, oceans campaign director at Greenpeace USA. “We’ve also been putting a little bit of public pressure on the Biden Administration to get it to campaign about the global threat.
“We need corporations to take responsibility for what they sell and produce and [make] a shift away from single use plastic and a move to reuse,” Hocevar said. “Governments have not done their job to regulate corporations.”
Whatever the UNEA decides in the coming months, “one good thing about the treaty is that it’s a wake-up call for corporations and governments. They all can see the change that is coming. It should prompt them to start taking action now. There’s no reason to wait until we have a treaty adopted to begin working on solutions,” Hocevar said.
A pile of single-use plastic water bottles found during a beach cleanup in Barbados. While cleanup efforts like this one are well intended, and offer good publicity bringing awareness to the problem, they can’t stem the tide of plastic pollution. That must be done at the source and along supply chains. Image by Brian Yurasits via Unsplash.
Plastic waste generation per person, 2010. Image courtesy of Our World in Data.
Hard work ahead
What can we expect of the upcoming U.N. session? What comes after? The immediate goal will be the formation of an intergovernmental negotiating committee to develop a treaty draft.
“I am confident that member states will decide on the path forward that makes a real difference,” UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said in a statement to Mongabay. The goal, she says, is to finalize the treaty language at the next UNEA general session in 2024. “This would make for a highly ambitious timeframe, reflecting member states’ understanding of the urgency to make progress on this critical environmental challenge.”
Andersen says member states will still need to hash out the degree to which the treaty will focus on oceans or worldwide dumping and how to finance the agreement. But she contends it will need to cover the entire plastic lifecycle “from production through disposal and reduction of the leakage of existing plastic currently in the global ecosystem.”
Asked about the risk that nations may underestimate their disposal, she replied, “This is an important issue for member states to deliberate further on.” Nations have expressed “reporting fatigue” on other multilateral environmental agreements, “and this is something we do need to seriously keep in mind as we assess the optimum review process.”
A landfill in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “The ever-increasing growth in the amount of plastics produced has led to a significant plastic waste generation [problem] that has outpaced society’s ability to manage it effectively,” a U.N. baseline report warned in 2020. Image by MARUF_RAHMAN via Pixabay.
Existing international agreements can provide some guidance on matters of enforcement and reporting. But the accord should emphasize convincing nations that their best interests revolve around “a new global plastics circular economy” and switch the emphasis “from enforcement to creating an enabling environment where it is in everyone’s interests to implement the agreement,” Andersen said.
The U.S. and other countries seem intent on the need to act fast and decisively. The State Department, writing to Mongabay, said: “This is an urgent issue that needs urgent attention. We cannot spend years negotiating. We support establishing an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee at UNEA 5.2 [the upcoming February-March meeting], and concluding the negotiations by 2024, which may be in line with the yet to be scheduled UNEA 6 target in both current proposed [Japan and Peru/Rwanda] resolutions.” Time is of the essence, as the tide of global plastics pollution rises ever higher.
Banner image: Some 13 million metric tons of plastic wind up in the oceans every year, and plastic kills 100,000 marine animals annually. Image by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash.
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High schoolers volunteering with Cape Fear River Watch pick trash out of a storm drain to prevent it from getting into waterways. Photo courtesy Cape Fear River Watch
Cape Fear River Watch is launching a new project to cut down on the amount of litter getting into the Atlantic Ocean.
The nonprofit organization has purchased catch basins that are set to be installed in a handful of storm drains in Wilmington and Leland, the town that sits west across the Cape Fear River, to intercept litter from getting into the river.
The “80% Project” — a title referencing estimates that 80% of marine litter comes from land-based sources — will study the effectiveness of LittaTraps, catch basins designed by a New Zealand-based company called Enviropod.
Cape Fear River Watch received a grant of a little more than $9,500 to purchase four of the mesh, basket-like traps, which are designed to sit inside stormwater drains. The grant, funded by the Jandy Ammons Foundation, will also cover the cost of signage that will be placed at the drains where the traps are installed.
The traps capture trash and other debris carried by stormwater from getting into a drainage system.
Robb Clark, Cape Fear River Watch’s water quality programs manager, is overseeing the project, which entails tracking for one year what kind of trash and how much of it is captured by the traps.
The traps are to be emptied weekly, and trash and debris, such as leaves and other yard debris, captured at each drain will be sorted and then weighed.
Clark said that by tracking by weight the amount of trash collected from the LittaTraps, the organization will have reliable data on how much trash is being caught before it enters the river and, ultimately, the ocean. That information could turn out to be a major selling point to municipalities to budget for future investment in additional traps.
Officials in Wilmington and Leland have agreed to install traps in two storm drains. The city and town determine in which drains to place the traps, which are to be maintained by Cape Fear River Watch for one year.
Adrianna Weber, Leland’s town engineer, said in an email that if the traps are a success, “the Town will absolutely look into continuing the use of these devices and similar technologies.”
“We want to keep our community and the waterways in and surrounding our community safe and clean,” she said in the email. “LittaTraps are just one way to help accomplish this goal for our residents and the natural habitats around Leland. The Town regularly checks and cleans stormwater catch basins; therefore, the maintenance of the LittaTraps would align well with our current maintenance operations.”
Leland partners with Cape Fear River Watch to host two stream cleanups each year.
“Anywhere there are public roads and rights-of-way there is always the possibility of trash accumulating over time, but fortunately, the Town does not currently have any major issues with trash and litter,” Weber said. “Maintaining clean roadways, waterways, and public areas is important to the Town and something we maintain focus on through programs like our regular street sweeping and stream clean-ups.”
During a March 27, 2021, cleanup along Mill Creek in the Surgeon Creek watershed, about 140 pounds of bagged trash, about 70 pounds of recycling, and 100 to 150 pounds of miscellaneous trash was collected, including a flat-screen television, car seats, cushions and a large pallet, according to a report provided by Weber.
In May, about 130 pounds of bagged trash, 20 pounds of recycling and 150 to 200 pounds of miscellaneous trash, including wood, shingles, metal car parts and furniture, were picked up along Navassa Road near the creek.
Last year, more than 7,000 pounds of trash was collected from monthly litter sweeps hosted by Cape Fear River Watch, Clark said.
“The vast majority of litter that we find in our watersheds is plastic of some kind,” he said. “Cleanups alone are a Band-Aid on a bleeding artery. I could do cleanups every day and we would still be behind. You need structural solutions like this to intercept litter that the cleanups are just not going to be able to get.”
A storm drain near Greenfield Lake in Wilmington. This curb inlet drains immediately into Greenfield Lake, the consequences of which can be seen in the form of trash floating on the water. Photo courtesy Cape Fear River Watch
LittaTrap’s mesh basket is designed to capture and retain 100% of plastics and “other gross solids over 5mm,” according to Enviropod’s website.
Plastics in the ocean are a global problem.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization made up of more than 1,400 government and civil society organizations, at least 14 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.
Clark said he isn’t aware of municipalities on the East Coast using LittaTraps, but there are communities on the California coast that do.
In 2020, the California State Water Board certified Enviropod’s LittaTrap FC, or full capture, basin insert as a full capture device for trash treatment control.
The traps are available in three standard sizes to fit various catch basin structures. Custom designs and filter liners designed to capture different pollutants are also available.
Cape Fear River Watch will likely purchase liners designed to capture generic litter, such as plastic bottles and bags, Clark said.
Liners must be replaced every three to five years and cost about $30 each.
“As for the maintenance itself, they only recommend you need to go into them quarterly,” Clark said. “That’s not a lot of labor and time input. It’s very hands off. They’re designed to hold up to 600 pounds of litter or debris.”
Clark said he hopes the traps will be installed some time in February.
“Wilmington has a pretty massive (litter) issue,” he said. “I anticipate that to increase year after year based on the way Wilmington’s population is increasing. It’s important to keep these things out of the river. We get our drinking water from the Cape Fear River.”

Tired of cigarette butts littering their streets, one Swedish city is handing over the solution to the birds.
A startup company in the city of Södertälje, near Stockholm, has designed a machine that will feed crows a little bit of food for every cigarette butt they bring back and deposit in the device.The company, Corvid Cleaning, believes their device could help save the city money when it comes to cleaning up the unsightly refuse.In fact, founder Christian Günther-Hanssen told The Guardian he expects that crows could cut the city’s butt removal budget by 75 per cent.[embedded content]The Keep Sweden Tidy Foundation says the city of Södertälje spends about $2.7-million on street cleaning per year, and that more than one billion cigarette butts are flicked onto Sweden’s streets annually. Story continues below advertisement

Günther-Hanssen told Swedish online news site The Local that he only uses wild birds for his business and that any participating crows are “taking part on a voluntary basis.”He said because crows are so intelligent, they can be trained quite quickly using a step-by-step method.“They are easier to teach and there is also a higher chance of them learning from each other. At the same time, there’s a lower risk of them mistakenly eating any rubbish,” he said.

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Plastic pollution causes damage akin to climate change, report shows

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DAKAR, Senegal — A crowd of people holding curved metal spikes jumped on trash spilling out of a dump truck in Senegal’s biggest landfill, hacking at the garbage to find valuable plastic.Nearby, sleeves rolled up, suds up to their elbows, women washed plastic jerrycans in rainbow colors, cut into pieces. Around them, piles of broken toys, plastic mayonnaise jars and hundreds of discarded synthetic wigs stretched as far as the eye could see, all ready to be sold and recycled.Plastic waste is exploding in Senegal, as in many countries, as populations and incomes grow and with them, demand for packaged, mass-produced products.This has given rise to a growing industry built around recycling plastic waste, by businesses and citizens alike. From Chinese traders to furniture makers and avant-garde fashion designers, many in Senegal make use of the constant stream of plastic waste.Garbage trucks entering the massive Mbeubeuss landfill in Dakar, which the government plans to close and replace with smaller sorting centers.Waste pickers, scrubbers, choppers and haulers at the dump constitute an informal economy that supports thousands of families.Mbeubeuss — the dump site serving Senegal’s seaside capital of Dakar — is where it all begins. More than 2,000 trash pickers, as well as scrubbers, choppers, haulers on horse-drawn carts, middlemen and wholesalers make a living by finding, preparing and transporting the waste for recycling. It adds up to a huge informal economy that supports thousands of families.Over more than 50 years at the dump, Pape Ndiaye, the doyen of waste pickers, has watched the community that lives off the dump grow, and seen them turn to plastic — a material that 20 years ago the pickers considered worthless.“We’re the people protecting the environment,” said Mr. Ndiaye, 76, looking out at the plastic scattered over Gouye Gui, his corner of the dump. “Everything that pollutes it, we take to industries, and they transform it.”Despite all of the efforts to recycle, much of Senegal’s waste never makes it to landfills, instead littering the landscape. Knockoff Adidas sandals and containers that once held a local version of Nutella block drains. Thin plastic bags that once contained drinking water meander back and forth in the Senegalese surf, like jellyfish. Plastic shopping bags burn in residential neighborhoods, sending clouds of chemical-smelling smoke into the hazy air.Senegal is just one of many countries trying to clean up, formalize the waste disposal system and embrace recycling on a bigger scale. By 2023, the African Union says, the goal is that 50 percent of the waste used in African cities should be recycled.Despite an increase in recycling, plastic waste litters the landscape. Bags dangle from cacti at the beach at Bargny, on the outskirts of Dakar.Children taking part in a weekly community effort to gather plastic on the beach in Bargny.But this means that Senegal also has to grapple with the informal system that has grown up over decades, of which the grand dump at Mbeubeuss (pronounced Mm-beh-BEHSE) is a major part.The recycled plastic makes it to enterprises of all stripes across Senegal, which has one of the most robust economies in West Africa.At a factory in Thies, an inland city known for its tapestry industry to the east of Dakar, recycled plastic pellets are spun out into long skeins, which are then woven into the colorful plastic mats used in almost every Senegalese household.Workers stripping reusable plastic from mats at the Sosenap factory, which recycles plastic to make mats and carpets in Diamniadio, on the outskirts of Dakar.Models posing in front of strips of recycled plastic from the Sosenap factory in December as part of Dakar Fashion Week.Custom-made mats from this factory lined the catwalk at Dakar Fashion Week in December, focused this time on sustainability and held in a baobab forest. Signs were constructed out of old water bottles. Tables and chairs were made of melted down plastic.The trend has changed the focus of the waste pickers who have worked the dump for decades, gleaning anything of value.“Now everyone’s looking for plastic,” said Mouhamadou Wade, 50, smiling broadly as he brewed a pot of sweet, minty tea outside his sorting shack in Mbeubeuss, where he has been a waste picker for over 20 years.Adja Seyni Diop, sitting on a wooden bench by the shack in the kind of long, elegant dress favored by Senegalese women, agreed.The main event at the outdoor venue for Dakar Fashion Week in December, which had a theme of sustainability.When she first began waste picking, at age 11 in 1998, nobody was interested in buying plastic, she said, so she left it in the trash heap, collecting only scrap metal. But these days, plastic is by far the easiest thing to sell to middlemen and traders. She supports her family on the income she makes there, between $25 and $35 a week.Mr. Wade and Ms. Diop work together at Bokk Jom, a kind of informal union representing over half of Mbeubeuss’s waste pickers. And most of them spend their days searching for plastic.A few days later, I bumped into Ms. Diop in her workplace — a towering platform made entirely of rancid waste that is so hostile an environment that it is known as “Yemen.” I almost didn’t recognize her, with her face obscured by bandannas, two hats and sunglasses, to protect her against the particles of trash blowing in every direction.Around us, herds of white, long-horned cattle munched on garbage as dozens of pickers descended on each dump truck emptying its load. Some young men even hung from the tops of trucks to catch precious plastic as it spilled out of the trucks, before bulldozers came to sweep what remained to the edge of the trash mountain.Adja Mame Seyni Diop, 34, began picking waste at age 11. She still does this work and is also a spokeswoman for an association of waste-pickers at the Mbeubeuss dump.Ms. Diop was hardly recognizable in the gear she wears to protect herself from the trash particles blowing around. She used a mosquito net to wrap up a giant bale of her wares.Most of the pickers who target plastic, like Ms. Diop, sell it, at about 13 cents a kilogram, to two Chinese plastic merchants who have depots on the landfill site. The merchants process it into pellets and ship it to China to be made into new goods, said Abdou Dieng, the manager of Mbeubeuss, who works for Senegal’s growing waste management agency and has brought a little order to the chaos of the landfill.Senegal is flooded with other countries’ plastic waste as well as its own.China stopped accepting the world’s unprocessed plastic waste in 2018. Casting around for new countries to export it to, the U.S. began to ship plastic to other countries, including Senegal.But that is beginning to change, too, as the Senegalese government appears to be cracking down on plastic waste coming from abroad. Last year, a German company was fined $3.4 million when one of its ships was caught trying to smuggle 25 tons of plastic waste into Senegal.The Mbeubeuss dump opened in the 1960s and is now considered an environmental hazard and a threat to human health.Washing pieces of plastic for recycling and sale at the Mbeubeuss dump. These days, plastic is the easiest thing to sell to middlemen and traders.In the past two years, the number of trucks coming to Mbeubeuss daily has increased from 300 to 500.But the government says that in a few years, the giant landfill will close, replaced by much smaller sorting and composting centers as part of a joint project with the World Bank.Then, most of the money made from plastic waste will go into government coffers. The waste pickers worry about their livelihoods.Mr. Ndiaye, the last of the original waste pickers who came to Mbeubeuss in 1970, surveyed what has been his workplace for the past half-century. He remembered the large baobab under which he used to take tea breaks, now long dead, replaced by piles of plastic.“They know there’s money in it,” he said, about the government. “And they want to control it.”But Mr. Dieng, the government dump manager, insisted that the pickers would either be given jobs at the new sorting centers, “or we help them find a job that will allow them to live better than before.”That doesn’t reassure everyone.“There are many changes,” said Maguette Diop, a project officer at WIEGO, a nonprofit organization focused on the working poor worldwide, “and the place of the waste pickers in these changes is not clear.”For now, though, hundreds of waste pickers have to keep on picking.Dodging bulldozers, piles of animal guts and cattle, with curved metal spikes and trash bags in their hands, they head back into the fray.Waste pickers worry they will lose their livelihoods if the government closes the dump. Mady Camara