U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

29–978 PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

S. HRG. 115–225 

EFFORTS ON MARINE DEBRIS IN THE 

OCEANS AND GREAT LAKES 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, 

FISHERIES, AND COAST GUARD 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, 

SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 25, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation 

( 

Available online: http://www.govinfo.gov 

(II) 

SENATE COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota, Chairman 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

TED CRUZ, Texas 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

DEAN HELLER, Nevada 

JAMES INHOFE, Oklahoma 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

BILL NELSON, Florida, Ranking 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii 

EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY BOOKER, New Jersey 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

GARY PETERS, Michigan 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire 

CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada 

NICK ROSSI, Staff Director 

ADRIAN ARNAKIS, Deputy Staff Director 

JASON VAN BEEK, General Counsel 

KIM LIPSKY, Democratic Staff Director 

CHRIS DAY, Democratic Deputy Staff Director 

RENAE BLACK, Senior Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, FISHERIES, 

AND COAST GUARD 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

JAMES INHOFE, Oklahoma 

MIKE LEE, Utah 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

TODD YOUNG, Indiana 

GARY PETERS, Michigan, Ranking 

MARIA CANTWELL, Washington 

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut 

BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii 

EDWARD MARKEY, Massachusetts 

CORY BOOKER, New Jersey 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on July 25, 2017 ............................................................................... 1 

Statement of Senator Sullivan ............................................................................... 1 

Prepared statement from the American Chemistry Council ......................... 30 

Statement of Senator Peters ................................................................................... 3 

Statement of Senator Inhofe ................................................................................... 18 

Statement of Senator Booker .................................................................................. 20 

Statement of Senator Schatz .................................................................................. 21 

Statement of Senator Cantwell .............................................................................. 24 

Statement of Senator Blumenthal .......................................................................... 27 

Statement of Senator Markey ................................................................................. 28 

WITNESSES

Ambassador David A. Balton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans 

and Fisheries, U.S. Department of State ........................................................... 4 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 6 

Nancy Wallace, Director, Marine Debris Program, Office of Response and 

Restoration, National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce ................................................ 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Melissa B. Duhaime, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology and 

Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan ................................................... 32 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33 

Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island ............................... 65 

APPENDIX

U.S. Coast Guard, prepared statement .................................................................. 71 

Response to written questions submitted by Hon. Gary Peters to Melissa 

B. Duhaime, Ph.D. ............................................................................................... 72 

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EFFORTS ON MARINE DEBRIS IN THE 

OCEANS AND GREAT LAKES 

TUESDAY, JULY 25, 2017 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, FISHERIES, AND COAST GUARD, COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION, Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in room 

SR–253, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Dan Sullivan, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Sullivan [presiding], Fischer, Inhofe, Gardner, 

Young, Peters, Cantwell, Blumenthal, Schatz, Markey, and Booker. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAN SULLIVAN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA 

Senator SULLIVAN. The Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, 

Fisheries, and the Coast Guard will now come to order. 

Good morning, everybody. I’d like to thank our witnesses for appearing. We have two panels today of very distinguished witnesses. 

I also just want to mention at the outset that this is one of these 

issues I think a lot of times takes place in Washington, but you 

don’t get a lot of media attention because they are very bipartisan, 

and sometimes I think our media, whether here or back home, 

loves to focus on the conflict. But on a big issue that’s very important to the country that’s bipartisan, you get a little less attention 

maybe because there’s not so much conflict here. 

But, nevertheless, I want to thank my colleagues for being here. 

I particularly want to thank Senator Booker for his leadership on 

this issue. Hopefully, Senator Whitehouse is going to be joining us 

soon. 

But as all of you know, marine debris poses a significant threat 

to our natural areas, wildlife, shorelines across the United States, 

our fisheries, but also across the globe. Eight million metric tons 

of marine debris enters our oceans and Great Lakes every year. My 

state of Alaska, in particular, is impacted. We have 34,000 miles 

of coastline, larger than any other state, and as a matter of fact, 

larger than the rest of the coastline of the United States combined, 

and we are very negatively impacted by marine debris as ocean 

currents carry millions of tons of trash to our shores in Alaska. 

But it’s not just marine debris impacting the livelihood of the 

people of my state. It’s literally every state with a shoreline, whether New Jersey or Hawaii or Michigan, in our country. What is particularly troubling about the marine debris challenge and crisis— 

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and we believe it’s absolutely a crisis—is that the majority of marine debris in the world’s oceans come from five countries in Asia— 

China, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and South 

Korea. 

So a few months ago, a bipartisan group of my Senate colleagues 

and I introduced the Save Our Seas Act, which takes steps to engage these countries, which is why it’s so important to have the 

State Department represented here, and also provide our Federal 

agencies with the resources they need to clean up our waters and 

prevent trash from becoming marine debris. 

It’s encouraging that Senators from both sides of the aisle are 

working together to introduce meaningful legislation to tackle the 

important issue of marine debris, and our bill has already been 

unanimously moved out of the Commerce Committee, and I believe 

we’re starting to look at the possibility of hot-lining it. The Save 

Our Seas Act encourages the administration and State Department 

to engage with the world’s leading trash producers and to take 

steps to address the impact of marine debris so that we can, together, become better stewards of our environment, oceans, and 

waterways. 

Not only should we be helping other countries both with their 

waste management infrastructure, but we should also try to help 

facilitate the cultural change. As children in this country, we learn 

about recycling and are taught about respect for our environment 

and natural places, but this is not the case everywhere in the 

world, and I look forward to hearing from Ambassador Balton how 

we can help export this stewardship mentality to other nations. 

The Save Our Seas Act also reauthorizes NOAA’s important Marine Debris Program, which is led by Ms. Wallace, our other witness today. It has helped to clean debris on America’s shorelines 

and the Great Lakes since 2006. The Save Our Seas Act would also 

provide additional support to states in the event of severe marine 

debris events like the one we saw following the Fukushima tsunami. 

Last Congress, I had the opportunity to hold a hearing on this 

topic as Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works 

Committee’s Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife. And, 

again, I want to thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership on 

that committee. Last year, he and I were the Chair and Ranking 

Member on that hearing, and I look forward today to building on 

that, to hear the perspective of Federal agencies and others most 

engaged on this topic, and to learn about their efforts to combat 

marine debris and suggestions on how we in the Congress can do 

a better job. 

Our oceans are a bipartisan issue. Please accept the introduction 

and unanimous support of this committee of the Save Our Seas Act 

as a demonstration of that bipartisan support. I want to thank our 

witnesses, Senator Peters, and others for the hard work on this important legislation. We are looking forward to a meaningful committee hearing today. 

Senator Peters. 

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STATEMENT OF HON. GARY PETERS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN 

Senator PETERS. Well, thank you, Chairman Sullivan, for calling 

this hearing, and I want to also join in thanking our witnesses, 

Ambassador Balton, Director Wallace, and I’m pleased to welcome 

Dr. Melissa Duhaime from the University of Michigan, who will be 

sharing her research and expertise on debris in the Great Lakes. 

Mr. Chairman, clearly, your state, with the longest shoreline in 

the United States, is vulnerable to the negative consequences of 

marine debris. But my home state of Michigan certainly is not immune from it, with more freshwater coastline than any other state 

and second only to Alaska in total shoreline. And though we may 

call it marine debris, what we’re really talking about is trash pollution in our water, water that is in the Great Lakes providing drinking water, navigation, abundant opportunities for recreation, including fishing, boating, and diving. 

Folks used to think that dilution is the solution to pollution, but 

in the Great Lakes, the negative consequences of that strategy are 

readily apparent. In 2015 alone, the Alliance for the Great Lakes 

removed nearly 100,000 pounds of debris from Great Lakes coastal 

habitats, and that didn’t even put a dent in it because scientists 

estimate that there are nearly 22 million pounds of plastic pollution that enter into the Great Lakes every single year. In Lake 

Michigan alone, that translates to approximately 100 Olympic size 

pools full of plastic bottles every year going into it. 

While surface currents move ocean debris into floating garbage 

patches, winds and lake currents often bring Great Lakes trash 

right onto our beautiful beaches. So it’s no surprise that in 1970, 

it was a Great Lakes senator, Gaylord Nelson, who spearheaded 

the very first Earth Day. Around that time, the three R’s emerged, 

and school children were learning to recycle, reduce, and reuse. 

And to this day, the three R’s provide a roadmap to address our 

growing trash problem, both in the Great Lakes as well as in the 

oceans. 

And, yes, cleanup is certainly essential, but we have to stem the 

tide of trash before it actually enters into the waterways. In Michigan, NOAA is playing a very key role. The Northeast Michigan 

Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative, Michigan Sea Grant, Michigan 

State University Extension Office, and the Thunder Bay National 

Marine Sanctuary have come together in a partnership with 

schools, teachers, and, most importantly, with leaders of tomorrow 

to raise awareness about Great Lakes trash pollution. 

Last year, a team of Alpena, Michigan, public school students at 

Ella M. White Elementary School used nets to trawl for garbage in 

the Thunder Bay River, and they were shocked with what they 

found. So they created a film called Plastics 101, and the video 

adds a fourth R to the old adage, and that is refuse, meaning to 

refuse single use plastics whenever you can. So I think it’s safe to 

say that their families are probably now using reusable grocery 

bags and water bottles after the production of that film, and this 

creative and informative film will be shown to third, fourth, and 

fifth graders learning about single use plastic pollution. 

Trash pollution is also a global problem in need of global solutions. The U.S. is a party to both the international treaties govVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
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erning at sea waste disposal, the London Convention and MARPOL 

Annex V. But as I believe you will hear today, most marine debris, 

about 80 percent, actually starts on land. It isn’t intentionally released into our water, but it ends up there because of waste management—can certainly be a challenge—or due to natural processes 

like wind, storms, or floods. The Department of State is integral to 

efforts to improve waste management systems in developing nations. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I’m heartened by your leadership on the Save 

Our Seas Act and your eagerness to work together to strengthen 

the marine debris program at NOAA and the Department of State. 

I’m concerned that if we don’t adequately fund these initiatives, we 

will pay for it in the long run. Trash pollution impedes waterborne 

commerce, it can introduce invasive species that wreak havoc on 

local ecosystems as well as our economies, and trash pollution introduces chemicals into our food chain. 

But this problem is one that we can begin to address, and I’m 

confident that our up and coming leaders, folks like the Ella White 

Elementary River Raiders and Bob Thompson’s class will use technology, innovation, and awareness much better than we may have 

done in the past. But one thing is for sure. They are certainly 

watching our example here today, and we look forward to making 

a move forward. 

Thank you. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Peters. 

I appreciate the witnesses that we have for this hearing today: 

Ambassador David Balton, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for 

Oceans, Fisheries, and the Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs; and Nancy Wallace, the Director 

of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program. 

You will have five minutes to deliver your oral statement. A 

longer written statement will be included in the record, if you so 

choose. Why don’t we begin with Ambassador Balton. 

STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR DAVID A. BALTON, 

DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OCEANS 

AND FISHERIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Mr. BALTON. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Peters, members of the Subcommittee. I really do appreciate the opportunity to testify today. I do have a written statement and ask 

that it be included in the record. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Without objection. 

Mr. BALTON. As you said, Senator, marine debris is a large and 

growing global problem. It harms fishing industries through losses 

due to abandoned and derelict fishing gear. Floating debris fouls 

ship drives and poses major navigational hazards to oceangoing 

vessels, and it poses costs on the tourism industry, and, of course, 

it harms the marine environment itself. 

Though marine debris includes various materials, one of the 

most common and troublesome is plastic. Current estimates indicate that there are already 150 million tons of plastic waste in the 

ocean, and, as you said, another 8 million tons added each year. 

Without action, there could be one ton of plastic for every three 

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tons of fish in the ocean by 2025, and by 2050, there could be more 

plastic than fish by weight in the ocean. 

No nation acting alone can solve this problem. Objects that enter 

the ocean in one location wash up thousands of miles away, making 

marine debris truly a transnational issue. Similarly, governments 

acting alone cannot solve the problem. Combating marine pollution 

effectively requires efforts from all stakeholders, public and private. 

But the very visible nature of marine debris and the rapidly 

growing awareness of its cost has made it an issue of strong public 

interest. I’m happy to report that a large and growing number of 

international organizations and fora are now focusing on marine 

debris, and a growing number of stakeholders are working with 

governments to address the problem. My department, the Department of State, works with NOAA and other interested agencies, 

foreign governments, international organizations, private sectors, 

civil society to raise awareness of the problem and to push for remedial action. Let me just mention a few examples. 

The Our Ocean conferences made marine pollution a real focus, 

producing significant public and private action. The 2016 conference alone yielded commitments of about $1 billion to address 

marine pollution and spurred partnerships of various kinds. The 

next Our Ocean conference, which will take place this October in 

Malta will again have marine pollution as a focal point. 

The United Nations has also given marine debris increasing attention partly because of our advocacy and extensive work. The 

U.N. launched its Global Partnership on Marine Litter in 2012. 

Two weeks ago, a U.N. ocean conference in New York focused on 

implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14, which commits all governments to reduce and prevent marine debris of all 

kinds. 

In the G7, we are working to coordinate individual country initiatives, for example, by supporting additional research on microplastics and their impact on human health, improve scientific monitoring, and advocating for better use of resources to recover, reduce, recycle, and repurpose waste. Through the G20, we seek to 

connect with key developing partners, such as India, Brazil, and 

South Africa, with U.S. agencies to share expertise and to promote 

their capacity to become regional leaders. 

As Senator Peters mentioned, we are party to the Marine Pollution Suite of Conventions adopted by the IMO, particular Annex V. 

We’re also party through a protocol to the Cartagena Convention 

on land-based sources of marine pollution. Using this tool, we are 

leading an effort to make marine debris reduction a priority in the 

Caribbean region. In the South Pacific, we are using the Noumea 

Convention to provide financial and technical support to governments in that region. 

Our current focus is on East Asia for the reason you stated, Mr. 

Chairman. Rapidly developing Asian economies are responsible for 

more than half of all plastic waste entering the ocean. It’s clear 

that the growth of these economies has outpaced their capacity to 

manage waste. 

Improving waste management infrastructure in these nations 

can dramatically reduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean. 

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So through APEC, partnering with the Japanese government, 

American industry, and conservation groups, we’ve brought together government officials, development banks, experts, and 

NGOs to spur financing for solid waste management systems in the 

Asia-Pacific region. 

We also seek to work bilaterally. We are supporting Indonesia, 

for example, that has announced the goal to reduce its marine litter by 70 percent by 2025. Among other things, we sponsored Dr. 

Jambeck of the University of Georgia, one of the foremost experts 

in the field, to travel to Indonesia and to the Philippines and Japan 

and South Africa to catalyze action. We facilitated a sister city program between two American and two Chinese cities to share best 

practices on waste management. 

These are some of the examples of the State Department’s engagement. Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify. I’d 

be pleased to answer any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Balton follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR DAVID A. BALTON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR OCEANS AND FISHERIES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Peters, and Members of the Subcommittee: 

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today to discuss the role of the Department 

of State in working on the international stage on reducing marine debris. We have 

found regular communication between the State Department and our interagency 

partners helpful to ensure efficient and effective utilization of our combined resources and expertise in our global marine debris engagement. 

Marine Debris: The Real Sea Monster 

Marine debris is a large and growing global problem. It harms fishing industries 

through losses due to abandoned or derelict fishing gear that continue to capture 

fish stock but also by polluting marine habitats, thereby lowering seafood catches, 

and ultimately reducing food security. Floating debris fouls ship drives and poses 

major navigational hazards for ocean-going vessels, increasing costs for seaborne 

trade. It also imposes significant socio-economic costs, particularly for the tourism 

industry by forcing local, state, and national governments to spend millions of dollars cleaning up beaches or through lost revenue from tourists who choose to spend 

their vacations away from polluted marine environments. 

Though marine debris includes various materials, such as glass, metal, cloth, and 

rubber, one of the most common, and troublesome, is plastic. Plastic is a major 

source of marine debris due to its widespread use—a function of its utility, durability, and low price. Globally, reliable estimates indicate that plastic use may double by 2025 and quadruple by 2050, leading to a dramatic increase in marine debris 

unless we take action. Current estimates indicate that there are already 150 million 

tons of plastic waste in the ocean, with another 8 million tons added each year. 

Without action, there could be one ton of plastic for every three tons of fish by 2025. 

By 2050, there could be more plastic than fish (by weight) in the ocean. 

This plastic will not go away readily. Plastic can take hundreds of years to decompose naturally. Even worse, in many cases it degrades into smaller ‘‘micro plastic’’ 

fragments that are impossible to retrieve, but which enter the food chain when consumed by sea life. 

This problem cannot be solved by one country alone. Objects that enter the ocean 

in one location can wash up thousands of miles away, making marine debris a fundamentally transnational issue. Plastic debris has been found in all of the world’s 

waters, from our domestic waterways, the Arctic ice, and the most remote 

uninhabited Pacific islands. The very visible nature of marine debris, and rapidly 

growing awareness of its costs, makes it an issue of strong public interest. Increasingly, international fora are taking up the question of marine debris as the vast 

scale of the problem becomes understood. 

Combatting marine plastic pollution requires efforts from all stakeholders, public 

and private. We welcome efforts by the U.S. private sector to work with governments and other actors to address the problem. Plastic products are ubiquitous in 

modern life because plastic is so useful and cost effective, and often without economically viable alternatives, which means that reductions or bans on plastic items 

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cannot be the sole solution. The American plastics industry estimates it will more 

than triple the net exports of plastics to $21.5 billion by 2030. As a result, the U.S. 

private sector also seeks to promote sustainable and responsible plastics use, including by improving waste management in markets where waste leakage into the waterways contributes to marine debris. 

Taking Action Globally 

The Department of State, through the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, is working with interagency, private sector, academic, industry, and non-governmental stakeholders to engage multilaterally, regionally, and bilaterally to address this increasingly pressing issue. 

Our goal is to develop a comprehensive and coordinated approach that brings to 

bear the American expertise on this matter—both inside and outside of the U.S. 

Government—to others around the world. 

For example, the Our Ocean conferences brought together diverse international 

stakeholders and underscored the importance of global cooperation—both from the 

public and private sector—to prevent and reduce marine debris. The conferences 

have yielded significant public and private action, including around $1 billion committed towards marine pollution alone in the U.S.-led 2016 conference in Washington, D.C. That marine pollution will remain a focus in the 2017 Our Ocean conference to be hosted by the European Union in Malta this October is a testament 

to the global commitment to reducing marine debris. 

The United Nations has also given marine debris an increasingly prominent role 

in recent years, partly because the United States has worked extensively to elevate 

the issue within UN bodies. As you will hear from my colleague Nancy Wallace at 

NOAA, the UN’s Global Partnership on Marine Litter was launched in June 2012. 

Since then, nations, including the United States, have worked in concert to prevent 

and reduce marine debris worldwide, while mitigating its impact on economies and 

human and animal health. The recent UN Ocean Conference, focused on the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14, put marine debris front and center. 

The G7 and G20 fora are also opportunities to push for progress in tackling marine debris. 

In the G7, we are working to promote better coordination of various individual 

country initiatives supporting additional research on micro plastics and their impact 

on human health, improved scientific monitoring, and advocating for better use of 

resources to recover, reduce, recycle and repurpose waste. We also support the G7 

focus on working through the existing Regional Seas Programs and Regional Fisheries Management Organizations to address this issue. 

In the G20, we seek to connect key developing G20 member partners such as 

India, Brazil and South Africa with U.S. expert agencies to share our expertise and 

to promote their capacity to become regional leaders in combatting marine debris. 

The G7 and G20 efforts complement the United Nations Environmental Assembly’s 

work to implement regional marine litter plans of action. 

The United States is a member of two Regional Seas Programs that engage neighboring countries to collaborate on preventing marine pollution of various types from 

entering the ocean. Through the Caribbean Environment Program, created in connection with the Cartagena Convention, we led an effort to make marine debris reduction a priority and instituted an initiative in partnership with the EPA to develop community-based trash reduction projects and create effective solid waste 

management policies. Projects in Jamaica and Panama are already underway and 

helping to keep marine debris out of the Caribbean. 

We are also actively engaged in the southern Pacific, home to the Hawaiian Islands and U.S. territories and Freely Associated States, through financial and technical support under the auspices of the Convention for the Protection of the Natural 

Resources and Environment of the South Pacific Region, also known as the Noumea 

Convention. These measures directly affect the quality of life and act to preserve 

the environment for American citizens and nationals. 

Combatting marine debris will require sustained concerted and comprehensive action. We need innovations in materials and design, dramatic changes in consumer 

behavior, and significantly improved waste management to significantly reduce the 

amount of marine debris. The solutions will also necessarily vary according to regional and national context. 

For example, work by manufacturers on improved packaging design to reduce the 

use of plastics is necessary for the nations designing and producing plastic goods. 

But this solution does not translate to developing nations where many consumers 

are forced to use single-use plastic sachets of daily goods like soap and detergent, 

simply because they cannot afford to buy larger containers. We need different solutions to effectively fit the local realities. 

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Targeting Marine Debris at the Source 

We are currently focused on reducing marine debris in East Asia as the best use 

of our resources to maximize our impact. Rapidly developing Asian economies are 

responsible for more than half of all plastic waste leaking into the ocean because 

their economic growth outstripped waste handling capacity. With just five countries 

in Asia generating more marine debris than the rest of the world combined, we can 

target interventions where they will have the most impact. Facilitating investment 

in waste management infrastructure in these developing nations can lead to dramatic reductions in plastics entering the ocean in a relatively short time. 

In APEC, for example, we partnered last year with the Japanese government, 

American industry and conservation groups to convene a meeting of government officials, development banks, experts, and NGOs to spur financing for solid waste 

management systems in the Asia Pacific. We are now engaged with a wide range 

of stakeholders within the U.S. Government, with foreign partners, academia, the 

private sector, and NGOs in an effort to develop the next steps to tackling this problem at the source. 

When appropriate, we are also working with key bilateral partners. For example, 

the Department of State is working closely with U.S. technical agencies and other 

partners to support the government of Indonesia’s recently stated ambitious goal of 

reducing its marine litter by 70 percent by 2025. As part of that effort, we have 

sponsored Dr. Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia, who did ground-breaking 

work on sources of marine debris, on an Embassy speaking tour to Indonesia, the 

Philippines, Japan, and South Africa, which will provide multiple opportunities to 

connect one of the foremost experts in the field with policymakers, media, and other 

influential audiences to catalyze action. 

We are also facilitating a program between the Chinese cities of Xiamen and 

Weihai and New York and San Francisco to share best practices on waste management to reduce and prevent the creation of marine litter. Both sides are working 

to develop an integrated waste management plan that can be used to reduce landbased sources of pollution in the marine environment. This follows a visit of Chinese 

officials to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco to see how U.S. cities have tackled the problem of marine litter by focusing on upstream preventative measures. 

These are some examples of the State Department’s engagement on marine debris 

in close coordination with our interagency colleagues and international partners. 

Marine debris, in particular marine plastic pollution, has consequential ramifications for the economy and food security directly impacting the United States. As the 

SOS bill recognizes, addressing marine debris is impossible without close international coordination. And the success of the Our Ocean conferences illustrates that 

American leadership can catalyze action to advance progress in our global efforts 

to combat marine debris. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify. I would be pleased to answer 

any questions. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Ambassador Balton. 

Ms. Wallace. 

STATEMENT OF NANCY WALLACE, DIRECTOR, 

MARINE DEBRIS PROGRAM, OFFICE OF RESPONSE 

AND RESTORATION, NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE, 

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

Ms. WALLACE. Good morning, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Peters, and members of the Subcommittee. As you mentioned, 

I’m Nancy Wallace, and I’m the Director of the Marine Debris Program at NOAA within the Department of Commerce. I very much 

appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the issue of marine 

debris, and my full written testimony is submitted for the record. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Without objection. 

Ms. WALLACE. One of our biggest impacts to our oceans comes in 

the form of marine debris. Once treated as an infinite resource, the 

ocean is now overflowing with manmade items that do not belong 

there. These items invariably include things like beverage conVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
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tainers, cigarette butts, single use plastic bags, and other consumer 

products. 

Marine debris ranges in size from derelict fishing gear and abandoned and derelict vessels to small plastic fragments and spheres 

that are less than 5 millimeters in size. Negative impacts of marine 

debris on the environment include: ghost fishing of marine species 

by derelict gear; entanglement of marine mammals, sea turtles, 

and other species; habitat destruction; and ingestion of debris of all 

kinds. Additionally, marine debris can create navigational hazards, 

cause significant economic loss, and affect human health and safety. 

The NOAA Marine Debris Program leads efforts in the United 

States to research, prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine debris. Authorized by the Marine Debris Act and amendments, the 

program supports marine debris projects in partnership with state 

and local agencies, tribes, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and industry. Our mission is to investigate and prevent adverse impacts of marine debris. To accomplish this mission, our 

program is built upon five main program pillars: research, removal, 

prevention, regional coordination, and emergency response. 

Research is critical to our understanding of the sources of marine 

debris and the adverse impacts that it has on the marine environment and humans. NOAA has funded research projects that focus 

on filling key gaps in our understanding of marine debris, such as 

evaluating the effects of micro plastic on marine species and assessing economic and environmental impacts of consumer debris 

and derelict fishing gear. 

NOAA annually funds marine debris removal projects across the 

United States, including in logistically challenging locations, such 

as Alaska and the Pacific Islands. For example, we are partnering 

with the Sitka Sound Science Center on removal efforts in remote 

marine debris hotspot communities in the Bering Sea, such as St. 

Lawrence Island and the Pribilof Islands. 

While removal can have immediate impacts on the marine environment, prevention is the ultimate key to reducing and eliminating marine debris. We like to use the analogy of turning off the 

tap. Improving waste management and infrastructure and facilitating behavior changes are some of the most effective ways to stop 

marine debris from entering the environment in the first place. 

Currently, NOAA partners are working with communities around 

the country to create networks of local leaders for prevention efforts and educate the public on what actions they can take to help 

address marine debris. Such successful coordination and collaboration with our partners would not be possible without our regional 

staff that are located in 10 regions around the country. These regional coordinators are the boots on the ground for the program, 

leading efforts to develop state and regional marine debris action 

plans that outline the major goals for preventing and reducing marine debris based on local needs and issues. 

As part of our final program pillar, emergency response, NOAA 

responds to events such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and flooding by 

leading detection, modeling, monitoring, and removal efforts in affected areas. The program is also proactively working with Federal, 

10 

state, and local partners to develop marine debris emergency response guides for all coastal states. 

Marine debris is a global problem that has local solutions. Every 

country faces unique challenges, and one size does not fit all. The 

most successful solutions take into account local knowledge and 

challenges as well as the best practices and lessons learned from 

across the global community. NOAA works very closely with the 

Department of State and participates in international efforts, including the United Nations Environment Global Partnership on 

Marine Litter, the G7 and G20 efforts, the Asia-Pacific Economic 

Cooperation. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify about this very, 

very important issue. I’m happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wallace follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF NANCY WALLACE, DIRECTOR, MARINE DEBRIS PROGRAM, OFFICE OF RESPONSE AND RESTORATION, NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE, NATIONAL

OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Introduction 

Good morning Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Peters, and members of the 

Subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify on the issue of marine debris. My name is Nancy Wallace and I am the Director of the Marine Debris Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) within the 

Department of Commerce. 

Marine Debris, as defined by the Marine Debris Act, is, ‘‘any persistent solid material that is manufactured or processed and directly or indirectly, intentionally or 

unintentionally, disposed of or abandoned into the marine environment or the Great 

Lakes.’’ Marine debris ranges from lost or abandoned fishing gear and vessels, to 

plastics, glass, metal, and rubber of any size, and is an on-going international problem that impacts our natural resources. The NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) 

leads national efforts to research, prevent, and reduce the impacts of marine debris. 

Authorized by the Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act and 

Amendments (P.L. 109–449, P.L. 112–213) (‘‘Marine Debris Act’’), the program supports marine debris projects in partnership with state and local agencies, tribes, 

non-governmental organizations, academia, and industry. NOAA spearheads national research efforts, engages with the Department of State and international organizations on global marine debris efforts, and works to change behavior through 

outreach and education initiatives. 

NOAA recognizes that marine debris is a global problem and that there is no ‘‘one 

size fits all’’ solution to addressing this issue on national and international scales. 

A recent study estimated that of the 275 million metric tons of plastic waste generated by 192 coastal countries in 2010, approximately 8 million metric tons entered 

the ocean (Jambeck et al., 2015). A large portion of the plastic was contributed by 

rapidly growing, middle-income countries whose waste management infrastructures 

are unable to keep pace with increasing economic growth and population sizes. Yet, 

even countries that have made considerable efforts to address plastic debris were 

still top contributors of mismanaged plastic. When paired with the fact that the 

Jambeck study addressed only plastic debris and not other substantial sources of 

marine debris, such as derelict fishing gear and abandoned vessels, it is clear that 

there is still much work to be done to find solutions to marine debris on both the 

national and international levels. 

Today I will focus my testimony on the Marine Debris Act, the impacts of marine 

debris in the ocean and Great Lakes, and the program pillars of NOAA’s MDP. 

Marine Debris Act 

The MDP is authorized by Congress as the Federal lead to work on marine debris 

through the Marine Debris Act, signed into law in 2006 and amended in 2012. The 

Act authorizes the Administrator of NOAA, through the MDP, to ‘‘identify, determine sources of, assess, prevent, reduce, and remove marine debris and address the 

adverse impacts of marine debris on the economy of the United States, marine environment, and navigation safety.’’ (33 U.S.C. § 1952). The Act further directs the Administrator, through the MDP, to ‘‘provide national and regional coordination to asVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
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sist States, Indian tribes, and regional organizations,’’ ‘‘undertake efforts to reduce 

the adverse impacts of lost and discarded fishing gear on living marine resources 

and navigation safety,’’ ‘‘undertake outreach and education activities for the public 

and other stakeholders’’ on marine debris issues, develop ‘‘interagency plans for the 

timely response to events,’’ and ‘‘enter into cooperative agreements and contracts 

and provide financial assistance in the form of grants for projects to accomplish the 

purpose’’ of the Act. 33 U.S.C. § 1952(b)-(c). The amendment in 2012 reauthorized 

the program and directs NOAA to address and determine severe marine debris 

events. The Marine Debris Act is the only comprehensive Federal legislation that 

addresses all types of marine debris in the ocean and coastal environment. 

Marine Debris Impacts 

Marine debris causes significant threats not only to ocean and coastal environments and wildlife, but also to human health, safety, and navigation. Each year, 

countless marine animals, sea turtles, and seabirds are injured or die because of entanglement in or ingestion of marine debris. Additionally, debris can scour, break, 

smother, or otherwise damage important marine habitat, such as coral reefs and 

tidal wetlands, that serve as the basis of marine ecosystems and are critical to the 

survival of many important species. Derelict fishing gear, such as nets and crab 

pots, can continue to capture fish—something we refer to as ‘‘ghost fishing’’—for 

years after they are lost. Not only does this affect the species that end up as bycatch 

in the lost gear by reducing the abundance and reproductive capacity of the population, but it also causes fishermen economic losses. For example, a recent study on 

the effects of derelict blue crab traps in the Chesapeake Bay by Bilkovic et al., 

(2016) estimated that ghost-pot removal efforts increased harvest value by $33.5 

million over a six-year period. There is also mounting concern over the potential for 

marine debris to serve as a pathway for the introduction of non-native species. An 

extensive literature review by Thiel and Gutow (2005) reported over 1,200 species 

associated with debris from sources all over the globe. Along with such ecosystem 

impacts, coastal communities collectively spend millions of dollars annually preventing debris from washing up on their shorelines and removing debris that does 

come ashore. It not only degrades the natural beauty of our coasts, but it threatens 

the safety of those who work and play there. 

Marine debris also creates navigation hazards. Ropes, plastics, derelict fishing 

gear, and other objects can become entangled in vessel propellers or clog water intakes causing operational problems, while larger items, such as lost shipping containers, can become collision dangers. Such interactions with marine debris involve 

costly engine repairs and disablement. Abandoned vessels are another navigational 

threat in our coastal waterways that have become a serious marine debris problem 

in many states. The dangerous and costly impacts of these different types of marine 

debris affect both the recreational boating and commercial shipping communities, 

and NOAA is actively seeking partnerships with these communities to expand our 

area of knowledge and proactively address the dangers. 

The NOAA Marine Debris Program in 2017 

The MDP, guided by the Marine Debris Act, is focused around five program pillars: research, removal, prevention, emergency response and regional coordination. 

Research 

A key tenet of the MDP is research. Congress recognized the need for research 

that determines the sources and helps us understand the adverse impacts of debris 

on the marine environment and navigation safety. 33 U.S.C. § 1952(b)(1). The field 

of marine debris research is relatively young with many questions that need to be 

answered in order to advance our understanding of the relationship between marine 

debris and the environment. Over the past 10 years, NOAA has funded research 

projects focusing on the effects of microplastics on marine species, development of 

standardized methods for marine debris monitoring, and assessment of the economic 

and environmental impacts of derelict fishing gear and consumer debris. For example, the program funded a 2014 study that evaluated the economic costs of marine 

debris on beaches in southern California. Authors found that a twenty-five percent 

decrease in marine debris could result in ∼$32 million in beach recreation benefits 

to local residents during the summer months (Leggett et al., 2014). 

Currently, NOAA is collaborating with several academic partners to quantify and 

characterize microplastic debris in the Mississippi River and how it may eventually 

affect the Gulf of Mexico. This study and others are working to fill critical knowledge gaps about microplastics and other debris types in terms of where it is coming 

from, where it ends up, and how it is impacting the environment. In continuing to 

fill such gaps, the program plans to fund new research projects in FY17. 

12 

Removal 

Since its inception, the MDP has been actively involved in marine debris removal 

across the United States. A portion of the program’s budget goes toward supporting 

removal projects annually, including locally driven, community-based marine debris 

prevention and removal projects that benefit coastal habitat, waterways, and wildlife including migratory fish. 

Removal of marine debris can be logistically challenging, particularly in remote 

locations such as Alaska. NOAA is currently supporting a derelict crab pot removal 

and recycling effort by the Douglas Indian Association in Gastineau Channel, outside of Juneau, Alaska, aimed at reducing loss of commercial species to ghost-fishing. In the last few months, tribal members have worked with other partners such 

as the Alaska State Troopers to identify, quantify, remove, and recycle or return 

derelict pots as well as discussed data applications and steps forward. The program 

is also partnering with the Sitka Sound Science Center to remove marine debris 

from remote, marine debris ‘‘hotspot’’ communities in the Bering Sea, such as 

Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island and St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands. 

Prevention 

One of the most effective ways to reduce marine debris is through prevention, 

which requires that boaters, fishermen, industry, and the general public have the 

knowledge and training to change the behaviors that create marine debris. NOAA’s 

robust outreach and education activities focus on improving awareness and changing behavior through developing and disseminating public information, and by 

partnering with and providing funding support to external groups including academic partners, local governments, and nonprofit groups. 

One of the greatest challenges of prevention is finding effective ways to reach diverse audiences and help them discover how they can participate in local solutions 

to marine debris. The National Aquarium in Maryland, in partnership with NOAA, 

is working with underserved communities in Baltimore to create a network of leaders to spearhead prevention efforts such as community cleanup events and communication trainings. In Mississippi, Ship Island Excursions is using their ferry service 

as a platform to educate passengers, many of which are students from underserved 

schools, on the impacts of marine debris on the Gulf of Mexico, and how they can 

prevent the issue. 

The materials and products from our other partnerships, such as marine debris 

curricula, are all free and downloadable from the MDP website, and the program’s 

regional coordinators do extensive boots-on-the ground outreach year-round to promote and share these products. 

Regional Coordination 

Working with non-governmental, regional, and international organizations, academia, and local, state, and Federal governments will enhance marine debris efforts 

across the country. The program’s regional coordinators extensively cover marine debris issues in the Pacific Islands, West Coast, Alaska, Great Lakes, East Coast, Gulf 

of Mexico, and Caribbean. While these coordinators focus on the local, state, and regional issues as a part of the national program, they also bring in lessons learned 

and make connections across the country and the world. 

NOAA is leading an effort with states to develop marine debris action plans, 

which outline major goals for preventing and reducing marine debris. Marine debris 

action plans are complete for Virginia, Florida, the Great Lakes, Oregon, and Hawaii, with plans in progress for the Gulf of Maine, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, California, and Alaska. NOAA also continues to work with partners throughout the 

country to develop and test innovative and cost-effective methods of detection and 

removal of marine debris, and to engage the public and industry, including shippers 

and fishermen, and the recreational community on marine debris. 

Emergency Response 

Coastal storms and natural disasters are another source of marine debris that create hazards in our inland and coastal waters. NOAA has responded to emergency 

events including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the American Samoa and Japan 

tsunamis, and Superstorm Sandy. Following the Japan Tsunami, the program 

spearheaded detection, modeling, monitoring, planning, and removal efforts for debris from Japan that made its way to U.S. shores. NOAA also contributed initial 

funding to the states of Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California for removal and response efforts, and was responsible for administering the monetary gift 

from Japan of $5 million under the Gift Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1522, to assist with debris 

removal in these states. Similarly, following Superstorm Sandy, NOAA worked with 

the affected states (Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and DelaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
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ware) on debris modeling, surveying, and removal using funds from the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013. 

NOAA also works with federal, state, and local partners to develop Emergency Response Plans that outline the processes and roles of each partner for responding to 

and recovering from a severe marine debris event, such as a hurricane. To date, 

plans have been completed for North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, and plans for Louisiana and Virginia are currently in 

progress. 

National Coordination 

As mandated in the Marine Debris Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1954, NOAA is the chair of 

the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee (IMDCC), a multi-agency 

body that is responsible for streamlining the Federal Government’s efforts to address marine debris. Representative agencies coordinate a comprehensive program 

of marine debris activities and report to Congress every two years on research priorities, monitoring techniques, educational programs, and regulatory action. Members 

include: Departments of State, Interior, Justice, and Homeland Security; U.S. Navy; 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and the U.S. 

Marine Mammal Commission. 

This IMDCC Progress Report provides an update on the activities of Federal 

agencies to address marine debris, as mandated by the Marine Debris Act. In 2008, 

the IMDCC delivered the ‘‘Interagency Report on Marine Debris Sources, Impacts, 

Strategies, and Recommendations.’’ Subsequent biennial progress reports have evaluated progress in meeting the purposes of the Act and these recommendations. 

In addition to the IMDCC, the program also partners with other agencies on funded projects, such as a recently completed collaboration with the National Park Service and Clemson University that collected and analyzed beach sediments to assess 

the abundance and distribution of microplastics and microfibers on U.S. National 

Park beaches. NOAA has also been contributing to a multi-year, multi-partner effort 

between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to remove debris from the 

Northwest Hawaiian Islands. In April 2017, ∼100,000 pounds of derelict fishing gear 

and plastics were transported from Midway and Kure Atolls to Honolulu, and incorporated into the Hawaii Nets-to-Energy program, a highly successful strategic partnership between agencies, industry, and local partners. NOAA, the City and County 

of Honolulu, the State of Hawaii, Covanta Energy Corporation/H-Power, and 

Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. work together to convert derelict fishing gear and 

plastics into energy. Since its initiation in 2002, this program has created enough 

electricity to power over 350 homes for a year in O’ahu. NOAA plans to foster similar collaborations with other agencies and industry partners moving forward. 

NOAA has also worked extensively with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) on contingency and emergency response planning on the West coast and in the Southeast and 

Gulf of Mexico, respectively. Additionally, the USCG provided valuable sighting reports of marine debris from the Japan tsunami to NOAA’s Office of Response and 

Restoration (OR&R), which houses the MDP. From these data, OR&R was able to 

generate trajectories for locating and removing debris items that landed on U.S. 

shorelines. 

International Engagement 

Marine debris is a global problem that has local solutions. In many countries, population size and consumption of plastic and other consumer debris are increasing 

more quickly than the capacity to manage waste, and thus solutions must be shaped 

to address country-specific challenges. To help others move forward in finding their 

own unique solutions, NOAA works closely with the Department of State and participates in other international efforts including: the U.N. Environment Global Partnership on Marine Litter (chair), the G7 and G20 Marine Litter Cooperation, the 

Global Ghost Gear Initiative, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) (cochair), the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (co-chair), the African Marine 

Waste Network, and implementation of Indonesia’s National Action Plan on Marine 

Plastic Debris. As the APEC co-chair, NOAA is working to increase collaboration 

with industry and non-government organizations, such as the American Chemistry 

Council, Ocean Conservancy, and other international partners that will help address 

the diverse waste management challenges around the world to minimize the amount 

of marine debris. 

NOAA is also working with the U.N. Environment Programme to help organize 

and facilitate the 6th International Marine Debris Conference in San Diego, California, March 12–16, 2018. The conference will bring together more than 600 participants from around the world, ranging from policy and decision makers, to waste 

management representatives, scientists, private industry, and civil society as well 

14 

as facilitate connections, provide an opportunity for participants to exchange information and individual recommendations, and transcend geographic boundaries in 

the fight against marine debris. 

Conclusion 

All marine debris comes from humans, and thus it is a problem we can, for the 

most part, prevent. NOAA will continue to pursue on-the-ground research, prevention, and reduction of marine debris nationwide and work with international and 

other partners to find solutions that fit the unique challenges posed by marine debris, particularly with respect to waste management. While the problem of marine 

debris has existed for decades and has received considerable attention from NOAA 

and other partners, there is still much to learn as we work to address the impacts 

of marine debris on the environment, marine species, and human health and safety. 

NOAA is committed to investigating and preventing the adverse impacts of marine 

debris, and looks forward to working with the Committee to achieve our vision of 

seeing the global ocean and coasts free of debris. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify about this important issue. 

I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

References 

Bilkovic DM, Slacum Jr. HW, Zaveta D, Jeffrey CFG, Scheld AM, Stanhope D, 

et al., 2016. Ecological and economic effects of derelict fishing gear in the Chesapeake Bay: 2015/2016 Final Assessment Report. Retrieved from NOAA Marine Debris Program website: https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/DFG_Effects_Chesapeake_Bay_Final_Report_2016.pdf 

Leggett C, Scherer N, Curry M, Bailey R, Haab T. 2014. Final Report: Assessing 

the Economic Benefits of Reductions in Marine Debris: A Pilot Study of Beach 

Recreation in Orange County, California. Retrieved from NOAA Marine Debris Program website: https://marinedebris.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/publications-files/ 

MarineDebrisEconomicStudy_0.pdf 

Jambeck JR, Geyer R, Wilcox C, Siegler TR, Perryman M, Andrady A, Narayan 

R, Law KL. 2015. Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean, Science,. 

347(6223):768–771. DOI: 10.1126/science.1260352 

Thiel, M., & Gutow, L. 2005. The ecology of rafting in the marine environment. 

II. The rafting organisms and community. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An 

Annual Review, 43, 279–418. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Great. Thank you, Ms. Wallace. 

Let me begin with some questions for both of you. 

Ambassador Balton, it was noted in your testimony about the 

challenges that we have with regard to the contributions of ocean 

debris and trash from countries in Asia, particularly the five that 

I noted in my testimony. Why are these countries such great contributors to trash in our oceans? What is driving this? 

Mr. BALTON. I think the simple answer to that, Senator, is that 

their pace of economic development is just moving ahead so much 

more rapidly than their waste management capabilities. So to get 

a handle on this, we really need to help them improve waste management processes. 

Senator SULLIVAN. So is it also a cultural issue, though, as well 

in terms of—and I’m not talking about the culture in Asia. I’m 

talking about a culture of recycling, you know, litter. Are there 

more things—it’s economic growth, but is it also kind of the recognition that this isn’t a problem? 

Mr. BALTON. I think we certainly have a greater level of recognition here in the United States, perhaps in Europe and other developed countries. But take Indonesia, for example. They have announced the goal to reduce by 70 percent their marine pollution by 

2025. That strikes me as reflective of a culture that cares about 

this issue and wants to take action. I think we can use that, Indonesia’s example, and hold that up to some of the other Asian states 

as the type of steps that they should be taking. 

15 

Senator SULLIVAN. Let me follow up on that. You know, in the 

Save Our Seas Act, one of the important elements of it is that it 

encourages the administration and the Department of State to become more engaged with the world’s leading marine debris producers. Your testimony, I think, did a really good job of laying out 

what is happening, and it’s not inconsequential. There’s obviously 

a lot of effort on this, whether it’s individual countries like Indonesia or the U.N. or the G20 or G7. You mentioned it’s come up 

in a lot of different fora. 

But what specific opportunities do you see for U.S. leadership in 

this area, as we have encouraged in our bipartisan bill, and to 

focus on results? 

Mr. BALTON. Given that a big part of the problem is in Asia, 

probably the best forum is APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It has already proven itself willing as a forum to 

provide a venue for dealing with these issues. The other economies 

seem willing to use APEC for this purpose. So we have ways of 

channeling technical and financial resources to countries in question. Through APEC, we have programs we can push forward 

through APEC. I would point to that as one particularly promising 

place for U.S. leadership. ASEAN might also be used in parallel. 

We have not used ASEAN so much as we might. So I could consider going there. 

We have some higher level opportunities. The Our Ocean conference series that we inaugurated here in the United States is 

moving forward. I mentioned earlier the next conference will be in 

Malta. They want the—and the EU will host it. They want to focus 

on marine pollution again as a main topic. We can press for commitments there. 

In the Caribbean, the South Pacific, we have Regional Seas programs that we’re members of. We can use them. And here’s one 

thought that we have not done enough about. The regional fishery 

management organizations that exist in the world could do more to 

deal with the problem of lost, abandoned derelict fishing gear. I 

think we should be using them. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, look, we want to work with you on all 

of these opportunities. When we introduced this bill, I’ve had a 

number of leaders from different countries express interest in cooperating with the United States. I think there’s a lot of encouragement, but I also think there’s a recognition that, globally, this is 

not going to really happen in terms of solid results unless the U.S. 

is one of the key leaders, and that’s part of what we’re trying to 

do in the bill. 

Ms. Wallace, let me ask you a couple of questions in my remaining time here. First, thank you for the work that you’re doing in 

Alaska and the rest of the country. Two quick questions. You talk 

about your association with other groups, local groups. What can 

Congress do to better assist you with your efforts at NOAA? 

And, then, more specifically, you talk about research, and particularly micro plastics and how they impact fish. As you know, in 

Alaska right now, we have salmon runs happening throughout our 

wonderful state. The biggest salmon runs on the planet Earth are 

taking place right now. What happens with regard to micro plastics 

16 

in fish like salmon? Has the research indicated any kind of negative impact that you’ve been able to see? 

Ms. WALLACE. Thank you for those questions. I think to answer 

your first question in terms of support that Congress can give, 

what I want to say most is thank you for the support you’re already giving. Having a hearing like this, bringing attention to the 

issue, is incredibly helpful. I think working with the local partners 

that we work with in your state has been incredibly valuable. 

They’re doing amazing work, and Congress has a substantial reach. 

So if constituents call and say, ‘‘What can we do to help this problem?’’, the answer is join a cleanup, think about what you’re using, 

recycle, don’t litter. You know, there are some real simple actions 

that can have a big impact. 

To the second question on micro plastics, we are doing a lot of 

research on micro plastics. We’re looking at what the impacts of 

micro plastics are on commercial fish species as well as invertebrates. So, for example, in oysters, we know that when oysters ingest micro plastics, it can affect their ability to reproduce. So there 

is an impact, and we need to continue to do research. 

In Alaska, we’ve been working with the Auke Bay Lab to really 

look at what juvenile salmon are eating. Do they eat small pieces 

of polystyrene, or do they try to avoid it? If they do eat it, what 

happens to them? I think those studies are still ongoing, and we 

have more to learn. But there certainly is concern. These are commercially caught species and we want to learn more about those 

potential impacts are up the trophic chain. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Great. Thank you. 

Senator Peters. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, again, thank you to our witnesses here today. I appreciate 

your testimony. 

Ambassador Balton, you have discussed both in your opening 

comments as well as questions from Chairman Sullivan the work 

that the Department of State is doing around the world in collaboration with other countries and coordinating with other countries. 

But given the issues that we have in the Great Lakes, which I outlined in my opening statement, the country that has an impact 

with that is Canada. So I would be interested in what ways is the 

U.S. collaborating with Canada on debris in the Great Lakes and 

in the region, and can we be doing a better job? What are your suggestions? 

Mr. BALTON. We do cooperate with Canada. They are quite likeminded with us. They see marine debris pollution in the Great 

Lakes included as a significant problem. We have a couple of bilateral mechanisms we can use, including something set up by the 

International Boundary Waters Treaty 100 years ago. That’s a good 

forum for that. We also have the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission that can deal with problems of lost, abandoned, derelict fishing 

gear. So those are some of the avenues I see for moving forward 

with Canada. I think we’re pushing on an open door with them. 

They want to do more with us. 

Senator PETERS. That’s good to hear. Ambassador Balton, the administration has proposed cutting roughly about 30 percent from 

the State Department budget, and I’m sure that a cut of that magVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
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nitude will have significant impact on a lot of what the State Department does. Would you address what that kind of cut could possibly mean to our international efforts to deal with the marine debris problem? 

Mr. BALTON. Senator, I guess I’d answer your question this way. 

I’ve been at the Department coming up on 32 years. I’ve seen our 

budgets rise and fall. The role of the State Department that I’ve 

outlined here is one of advocacy, convening, sending experts around 

the world. It doesn’t cost a great deal of money. These are not highdollar programs, and I’m reasonably confident that whatever our 

budget is in Fiscal Year 2018 and beyond, we will be able to continue to do this type of work on an issue as important as this. 

Senator PETERS. Director Wallace, conversations on marine debris seem to always lead to more questions than answers. This is 

a very complicated subject, and we’re starting to delve into that 

with this hearing as well as the other work that we’re doing. But 

one of the top tier issues that was identified in the Great Lakes 

Marine Debris Action Plan was the need to just further refine the 

scope of the problem and better define what is really currently 

known about some of these issues. 

In your estimate, what are some of the biggest gaps in our 

knowledge when it comes to the marine debris issue? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think the Great Lakes Action Plan was a 

real model for that conversation, and just to share, we did have 

great participation from Canada in the Great Lakes Action Plan as 

well. One of the emerging issues I think we’re hearing more and 

more about that we’d like to do more research and understanding 

on is the microfiber issue. Micro plastics is getting a lot of attention 

and there has been great work at reducing the sources around potentially micro beads. But what we’re learning now is microfibers 

that can come off our clothes are actually a huge issue as well. So 

I think in terms of research, looking at how we may be able to prevent that source of debris and also looking at what the potential 

impacts are around that source of debris are important. 

Senator PETERS. So we, as you know, last Congress, passed the 

Microbead Free Waters Act, which dealt with microbeads. Do you 

think something along that line may be necessary for microfibers, 

or is it still too early to know that? What should be our path forward? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think you made a great point before about 

always raising more questions. So I think with the microfiber, we’d 

have to look at how you would do that. So I think that’s where the 

discussions would come in, you know. Is there some sort of technology that can help to eliminate the fibers going through waste 

water treatment plants? With the microbeads, we know exactly 

where they are. They are in our cosmetic products. So having 

passed that legislation really helped prevent a specific source of debris. So I think it would be great for all types of debris to start 

looking at how we prevent those specific types of debris. 

Senator PETERS. Great, thank you. And, finally, could you talk 

a little bit about how NOAA measures progress in addressing marine debris on a regional basis, specifically, the Great Lakes. As 

you’re looking at what is truly a global problem, but a significant 

18 

one, the Great Lakes, regionally, how are NOAA’s efforts used to 

review that? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think the Great Lakes Action Plan, as I 

said, is a model, and what we like to do is because there are such 

different types of debris issues in different places, we can really 

focus on measuring success. So in the Great Lakes, specifically, 

looking at how much debris we’ve removed. So we’ve partnered 

with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, for example, in Belle Isle to 

remove lots and lots of debris. 

We can also have monitoring programs that look at statistically 

robust—getting people out on the shorelines to count how much debris is out there. Over time, we hope to be able to reduce it. And 

we also measure success by how many people we’re reaching, so 

getting that prevention message out. In 2017 alone, we’ve reached 

over 16,000 K through 12 students, which is a great number, and 

we’ll continue to do that, because I think behavior change is a big 

way we are going to make success happen. 

Senator PETERS. Right. Thank you, and thank you for your efforts. Appreciate it. 

Ms. WALLACE. Thank you. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Senator Inhofe. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, I never realized there was such an issue or there was 

a problem until Senator Sullivan was elected and made it very 

clear to me the problem that exists up in his area and the source 

of that problem. But that got me interested in another area, because back in the real world, I was a builder and developer in 

south Texas, back when I enjoyed life. 

I remember so well during that time—in fact, do you remember 

the Ridley sea turtle? It was started by Ila Loetscher. She died at 

100. She and I used to work together as long as 60 years ago on 

some problems with that particular—very few places where they 

breed and that happened to be one of the places. 

Now, the reason I’m bringing this up is that this has become— 

some of these have been a problem down there, but nobody talks 

about it down in south Texas. I notice that most—you talk about 

in Asia and where the problem is. 

And you mentioned, Ms. Wallace, in your testimony that they 

picked up—Cartagena Convention. Now, when was that? 

Ms. WALLACE. Excuse me? 

Senator INHOFE. The Cartagena Convention. 

Ms. WALLACE. I’ll turn that over to Ambassador Balton. 

Senator INHOFE. I thought you said—you were the one who referenced it. 

Mr. BALTON. I may have mentioned that, Senator. The original 

Cartagena Convention, I believe, dates about 30 years ago. But 

there was a protocol to it on land-based sources of marine pollution 

that is more recent—I want to say in the 1990s—and we became 

party to it probably in the late 1990s. Anyway, it’s a tool for working with other countries in the Caribbean region on this. 

19 

Senator INHOFE. Yes, that’s right. And, by the way, I appreciate 

very much your answer to the question that was asked of you, because quite often—I know there are dedicated people that you work 

with—and you’ve been there for a long time—who are going to see 

to it that these programs are carried on, in spite of having to tighten up a little bit in fiscal things. 

Now, the reason I mentioned the Cartagena Convention is because that focused on the projects—I think you had a project in Jamaica and in Panama—— 

Mr. BALTON. Yes. 

Senator INHOFE.—getting closer to the area where I worked for 

some 15 years. Now, I would assume that the same problems exist 

in some of the Mexican areas and Central American areas as do 

in Asia. And the reason I bring this up is because, in that case, 

they say that there’s an ingestion of something that is affecting in 

a negative way the Ridley sea turtles, and, in fact, just as recently 

as two months ago, I was down there talking about that. 

Can either one of you—are you familiar with—in that area—I 

know that’s not the area of concentration in this committee—but 

what that might—how they might be affected? 

Ms. WALLACE. I can take that one. So, yes, I think you’re absolutely right. We need to work more with our partners to the south, 

specifically in south Texas. We have monitoring programs around 

South Padre Island that just show a massive, a massive, amount 

of debris washing ashore, especially the way the currents bring the 

water and the trash up from Mexico, and certain debris items you 

can certainly track back. 

So that’s something that we are working on very strongly. We 

have some grants with groups in south Texas to do a lot of removal 

and prevention, specifically around the sea turtles, and prevention 

around sea turtles, how to make sure we’re not impacting them, because sea turtles can certainly ingest things like plastic bags or 

other debris items that can be a big problem. 

We also have some really strong partnerships in southern California and the San Diego area, where just over from Tijuana, 

there’s trash coming into the Tijuana River. So we have provided 

funding to set up booms that will actually catch that trash before 

it goes out into the open ocean. But we’re also working on prevention efforts in Tijuana as well. 

Senator INHOFE. Well, I’m very interested in that area down 

there. You know, I can remember back when the big issue was turtle exclusions from shrimp boats, and we had very positive results 

getting involved in that. So there can be some things that we help 

with. So what I would ask of either of you is to kind of help me 

be informed, because I work with those people still on a regular 

basis, and there are a lot of people down there concerned about 

that, and I think they need a little guidance, because until this 

hearing came along, I was not aware of that. So if you will keep 

me informed about that particular area, it would be very helpful. 

Mr. BALTON. Yes, sir. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Inhofe, for those questions. 

Senator Booker. 

20 

STATEMENT OF HON. CORY BOOKER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY 

Senator BOOKER. I’m really grateful. This is an important hearing. It’s an issue I’ve been pushing and pounding away on since I 

introduced a bill in the last Congress. In absentia, I just want to 

say how grateful I am to Senator Sullivan for picking this up, being 

a champion, making more people aware of it, and for the generous 

comments by Senator Inhofe about Senator Sullivan’s leadership in 

making people aware, and I’m psyched about the bipartisan efforts 

that are going on right now. 

But the problem is that every time I sit down to read about this 

problem, I realize that it is far more dire than we are expressing, 

and that the reality is despite all of these really good efforts, we 

are barreling toward a crisis of global proportions. So the amount 

of plastics being poured into our oceans—the amount of plastics, 

period, has increased 20-fold in the last 50 years, and that curve 

of increase in plastics production is not being bent. And with the 

onslaught of shipping stuff around the world, the expanding 

globalization, this production of plastics is just growing and growing and growing. 

It’s nice also that we’re talking to other areas on the planet 

Earth about their problems. But in the United States, we recycle 

only 8 percent of this plastic. The rest of it goes into two channels, 

one into our landfills, which we may think is okay, but we’ll talk 

about the carbon problem in a second, and the other—a third of it 

ends up in our oceans and our waterways. 

So, again, I’m excited about the progress we’re making, but I 

really do feel like we are on our hands and knees crawling in the 

foothills, and there’s an Everest of a problem that is screaming toward us that we don’t seem to understand. It is terrifying when I 

sit down and read the problem. And, frankly, there are enough reasons already that our grandchildren should be ticked off about this 

generation and what they stuck them with. But what our children 

are going to inherit is unconscionable. 

You know, right now, we have about a third of all plastics, as I 

said, escape the ecosystem—escape collection systems, rather, and 

wind up floating in the sea or in the stomachs of our animals and 

birds, and that amounts to 8 metric tons a year right now, before 

the increase. Now, that’s about five plastic—five bags filled with 

plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. We throw out these 

numbers and people don’t seem to grasp how much plastic is out 

there right now. For every foot of coastline on the planet Earth, 

you can have five plastic bags full of this stuff. 

Plastic production accounts for so much of our oil consumption, 

but that’s going to increase. Right now, it’s 6 percent. Soon it will 

be 15 percent of our oil production that is going into producing 

plastics, and the crazy thing is the carbon emissions alone by 2050 

will be accounting for 15 percent of the carbon emission budget 

that we have before we go to points of no return. I’m so encouraged 

by the bipartisanship partnership on this. But it is just not enough. 

So, Director Wallace, please, could you help—just put—honestly 

put aside your—the encouraging efforts that are going on that are 

really good to see. But could you let me know your personal sense 

of alarm at the nature and gravity of the global crisis we have, that 

21 

by 2050, we will be in a state of planetary peril. Would you please 

tell me if I’m not—am I exaggerating that, in your personal opinion? 

Ms. WALLACE. This is an alarming issue. It is. And I think we 

do need to pay attention to it. I am happy that we’re here talking 

about this. It’s something I work on every single day, so I do have 

to have a sense of optimism. Otherwise, it would be a hard job to 

have. 

I think you’re exactly right. One of the things that we keep talking about is, you know, the biggest polluters in that study that 

we’re mentioning, the Jambeck study, are in Asia, the five biggest 

countries. But the United States is number 20, and we are the 

number one generator of waste in the world. So we are contributing 

to this problem, and I think what we need to do is to raise some 

alarm bells to say this is a big issue. It is something we can 

change. There are actions that we can take. We can absolutely use 

less, generate less waste—— 

Senator BOOKER. Ms. Wallace, can I just—because my time has 

expired. But I just need to say this. I’ve learned the hard way from 

inner city Newark, New Jersey, that hope does not exist in the abstract. It is a response to despair, saying despair is not going to 

have the last work, and I’m going to be an agent of hope. And hope 

is not just some sit back and, like, let’s pray things change. Hope 

gets up in the morning, rolls up its sleeves, and goes to work. 

And the hope has got to be changing the culture of our planet, 

and in this country, we want to lead on this issue. Why aren’t we 

leading in discovering new ways to wrap our products that don’t involve petrochemicals and that are biodegradable? Why aren’t we 

changing the habits in our cities and in our towns of plastic bag 

use and all of this? 

This is a crisis of global proportions, and we’re acting as if the 

little teeny bit that we’re doing is somehow going to stop our 

grandchildren from experiencing a world where there is more plastic—I hope to be alive in 2050—more plastic in our oceans than all 

of the fish and marine wildlife. That is where we’re heading. In 

fact, we could be getting there quicker with the onslaught of 

globalization and how many packages I order from Amazon Prime, 

and I could go on and on and on about that. 

So that’s my thinking, is that we—this is a great early step in 

this crisis. But we’ve got to start doing a lot more aggressive things 

if we’re going to actually avert a disaster that we see coming toward us. Every scientist, every report, from the World Economic 

Forum to the Journal of Science event, everything I can get my 

hands on, says we are heading screaming toward a level of peril 

that our efforts right now don’t seem to fully grasp. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, I want to thank Senator Booker for his 

leadership on this issue and obvious passion, and I think it’s what 

we need, and it’s much appreciated. 

Senator Schatz. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN SCHATZ, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

Senator SCHATZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

22 

I thank the Chairman and the Ranking Member as well as the 

Senator from New Jersey for their leadership on this issue. This is 

a bipartisan issue. It’s important to me for obvious reasons. 

Ms. Wallace, I wanted to ask you about the garbage patch in the 

Pacific. Let’s just do it this way to start. Describe it for us. 

Mr. WALLACE. Yes. The garbage patch has gotten this amazing 

sort of reputation that maybe it doesn’t deserve. I think people 

think about an island of solid trash out in the middle of the ocean 

twice the size of Texas. That’s what we hear, right? But what it 

actually is is the North Pacific Gyre. It’s a convergence zone, where 

things that don’t have propulsion on their own will end up. So it’s 

a collection area. 

But it’s not a solid land mass. It’s bundles of fishing gear. It’s 

tiny pieces of micro plastic that can be spread miles apart and 

throughout the water column around the benthic surface. So you 

can actually sail through the garbage patch without necessarily 

knowing you’re there. 

Senator SCHATZ. It’s just covered in trash. 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, it is, but it’s not—you may not see all the 

trash, right, so it’s not this big solid land mass. It’s actually kind 

of all spread apart. We’ve used the analogy of a peppery soup, if 

you think about it, so these little pieces that are flowing throughout. 

Senator SCHATZ. OK. Thank you. And then when it comes to marine debris and marine trash, what is the composition of marine 

trash on the planet, if we know this, between sort of maritime uses, 

between dumping, between sort of landfill practices that are not 

best practices? In other words, where is this all coming from? 

Ms. WALLACE. That’s a great question, and it is something that 

we don’t necessarily have the exact answer to, but I can certainly 

tell you there is a mix of land-based and sea-based sources. For instance, in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, we know that we accumulate 50 tons of derelict fishing gear a year in this pristine environment. 

But if you look at the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal 

Cleanup Data, the past 30 years of picking up trash on the beach, 

the number one item is almost always cigarette butts, followed by 

plastic bottles, plastic bags, consumer debris. So we know that a 

huge amount is these land-based sources of debris. NOAA has a 

monitoring program to try to get at that more. 

Senator SCHATZ. So we don’t know? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think there’s a number that we hear a lot, 

sort of 80 percent land and 20 percent sea, but I think it really depends on where, specifically, you’re looking. To get a real global estimate is hard. But we know it’s all bad. 

Senator SCHATZ. Sure. But from the land-based trash, is this— 

are these landfills that are along the coastline and trash that ends 

up in the ocean, or is this the dumping of land-based trash into the 

ocean? 

Ms. WALLACE. In the United States, I would say a lot of it is 

coming from sort of mismanaged waste, things that flow off garbage trucks, maybe don’t get put into garbage cans, littering. But 

it can come all the way down through the river, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be your beach debris. Here in Washington, D.C., 

23 

we know things are coming straight down the Anacostia River into 

the Potomac and out into the Chesapeake Bay. So it doesn’t necessarily come just from our people that are right on the shores. It’s 

coming from all over. 

Senator SCHATZ. The reason I’m asking this is not just to satisfy 

my curiosity, but, obviously, we want to know where it comes from 

so we can figure out how to go upstream and stop it. 

Ms. WALLACE. Right. 

Senator SCHATZ. And, you know, Senator Booker talked eloquently about the need for behavior to change and the need for 

some of our societal norms to change, and the good thing is that 

we’re innovative enough to still have a convenient life and reduce 

the amount of waste we put into landfills and then accidentally put 

into the ocean. But the question that I have—and I’m troubled because I have some pretty good experts on my own staff, and they 

have accessed other experts—that we don’t really know from 

whence all this comes and how to go upstream and determine—especially in the international context—what do we do about the poor 

management of landfills, for instance, in Southeast Asia, you 

know? We just don’t know what percentage of the problem this 

comprises. 

Ms. WALLACE. Right. So I think, you know, in the United States, 

one of the things we’re doing is we have robust monitoring programs. So it’s a small thing, but we can start to see what the biggest items are in specific areas. 

Our partners in Virginia find tons and tons of balloons on their 

beaches, and if we didn’t have that monitoring data, we wouldn’t 

know. But knowing that they’re balloons, maybe we can do a really 

big push on education, saying, ‘‘Hey, don’t release your balloons 

into the air.’’ In Washington, we found a lot of aquaculture debris. 

We can go to the aquaculture industry and say, ‘‘This is a problem. 

We have the data.’’ 

In developing countries, I think it’s a very different story. I think 

we need to really think about the financing and the value around 

waste and how we incentivize that value and that collection. So 

there are different solutions depending on the different places that 

you are. 

Senator SCHATZ. Mr. Balton, do you have anything to add? 

Mr. BALTON. No. She said it perfectly. 

Senator SCHATZ. Thank you. 

Senator BOOKER. Mr. Chairman, can I just submit for the 

record—— 

Senator SULLIVAN. Sure. 

Senator BOOKER.—because I think what I would really like for 

you and I and others to consider is what these two experts—what 

are some of the things that are not being done or not being suggested by the legislation put forth, if they would prioritize significantly for Congress to be looking at doing. I think an action plan 

that might be more ambitious for us to consider would be really 

helpful if we could submit that for the record. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, yes, why don’t we do that in terms of 

our witnesses, all three witnesses today, and if Senator Whitehouse 

has the opportunity to make it, he’s going to be another witness. 

But I think that’s a good idea. We have legislation that, I believe, 

24 

is supported by the administration. We’re certainly encouraging 

you to take additional steps. But if you can provide us suggestions 

for what’s not in the legislation but you still think we need to 

prioritize, I think that would be a very helpful exercise. 

We’d like to give you as much time as you need to come back to 

us, because we’d like you to get that right, and we’d like to get 

some kind of consensus on it. I think it’s an excellent suggestion. 

Senator Cantwell. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON 

Senator CANTWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to 

thank Ms. Wallace for, you know, this—in another iteration, obviously, the tsunami debris which you helped Alaska, Washington, 

and Oregon deal with some of that debris, and we so appreciate it, 

because here we were—this similar issue but, obviously, a different 

cause, and left with a cost—I think in one instance, we had a major 

dock show up on the Oregon coast, which was—who was going to 

remove that? This wasn’t like a weekend crew of people. So the cost 

of all of this debris does affect our fishing community, our coastal 

community. So thank you for that. 

I wanted to bring up the issue of derelict vessels and—well, to 

either of you, really. I mean, the GAO recently completed a study 

on abandoned and derelict vessels, and we had this Davy Crockett, 

which was a derelict barge in the Columbia River, and it spilled 

1.6 million gallons of oil in the Columbia River, and it cost $21 million to clean it up. So the GAO in their study found that there were 

significant gaps in who owned this issue. 

So I wanted to hear from both of you what—you know, the Coast 

Guard is responsible for removing the oil and hazardous substance 

but not the vessel; the Army Corps, if it is deemed a navigational 

hazard. So you could have a derelict vessel that wouldn’t be 

deemed a navigational hazard and there it would be, sitting there 

for a long time. 

So what is NOAA’s role, Dr. Wallace, and what do you think we 

should be doing to create more certainty and predictability for our 

communities about removing derelict vessels? 

Ms. WALLACE. Abandoned and derelict vessels are a real problem, and I think a lot of people may not think of them as marine 

debris, but they are. For NOAA, we have the ability to provide 

funding, and we do so through competitive grants, to remove vessels. But it certainly is not enough funding or comprehensive 

enough to remove every derelict vessel. 

So one of the things that we’ve been able to do is work with different states who have different programs. Washington, in particular, has a very good program about collecting fees that can then 

be used to remove those vessels when they become derelict. So 

we’ve been working with states to help share that information. In 

Florida, they have a great program, a vessel at risk program, 

where there’s a lot of enforcement around identifying which vessels 

may become derelict and using preventative measures through enforcement opportunities to help maybe make them not become derelict. 

25 

But I think it is a gap, and I think that GAO report showed that 

very clearly. If there isn’t a responsible party, and if there isn’t a 

navigational hazard or oil and gas situation, it does become sort of 

the problem of the local landowner, which is not right, and that’s 

where we are right now. 

Senator CANTWELL. Do you have a recommendation? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think there are more things we can do to 

help prevent them. That’s the best thing we can do. If there’s vessel turn-in programs, in some states, that’s an opportunity. So if 

you—it costs a lot of money to dispose of a boat appropriately. So 

there are kind of these opportunities—certain weekends when people can go and dispose of their boats free of charge. I think that 

would be great. And, also, these vessel-at-risk programs, expanding 

them, and then looking for areas where we might be able to have 

funding through local programs that then would help address when 

a vessel does become derelict. 

Senator CANTWELL. Mr. Balton, any comments here about derelict vessels? 

Mr. BALTON. Only this. I’m glad you raised that, because we 

have been focusing almost exclusively, until this point in the hearing, on plastic pollution, which is, of course, a serious problem. But, 

as you point out, there are other serious categories of marine pollution. You mentioned one. I might mention a couple of others. We 

have nutrient pollution. Excess nutrients flow off of, for example, 

agricultural areas, out rivers and the creek dead zones in the 

ocean. There’s some 600 of those around the world. We have oil pollution problems still around the world. 

So in looking at marine debris, it’s important not to lose sight 

that there are many different types of pollution, and they are amenable to different types of solutions, unfortunately. But they’re all 

important. 

Senator CANTWELL. Well, I thank my two colleagues for having 

this hearing, and I thank the witnesses, and I hope we do spend 

time on this aspect of it. We had another incident up in our shellfish industry in the North Sound. We had another derelict vessel, 

and it shut down the industry up there. So these can be more than 

just an eyesore. They can be a real threat to the environment and 

activity, and I just think this gap between Coast Guard and Army 

Corps and NOAA is still something we should think about. 

I’m all for partnership, and I like the idea that you’re saying that 

you might be able to prevent some of these. We’ll look into what 

states are doing that and what else we can do. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Cantwell. 

Senator Peters had a follow-up question. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a comment I wanted to mention to Ms. Wallace, because you 

talked about fishing gear that gets cut loose or lost or whatever it 

may be floating around the ocean. I actually had an opportunity to 

at least see a video of some courageous folks from NOAA out in 

Monterey Bay, California. 

I was out there recently, and about a week before I was there, 

I know that they were dealing with a humpback whale who had 

swam through an abandoned net that was wrapped all around the 

26 

whale. The whale was struggling, was not going to survive, and 

folks from NOAA actually went out there in a small boat—went out 

there and hooked up to the whale—it was like a Nantucket sleigh 

ride from the old days—and cut the net off of the whale and set 

the whale free so it was able to live, and then was able to recover 

that net. 

But I think the American public needs to know that NOAA is 

truly a hands-on agency that goes out there and is saving marine 

mammals as well as other work. So I wanted to thank you and all 

of your colleagues at NOAA for what you do every day. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Dr. Wallace, I had a follow-up that I wanted 

to ask you about, and I know that you’ve done a lot of work on this 

issue. It’s a particularly challenging issue, but it deals with remote 

areas in our country in terms of marine debris cleanup. And I 

agree with kind of the theme of the panel and the witnesses and 

some of the senators’ questions. I mean, I think we clearly need to 

get to prevention as the key, but cleanup is also important. 

There are areas, as you know, in Alaska that are extremely difficult to collect marine debris from that have literally tons of debris 

on some of our shores. The Gulf of Alaska Keeper, an Alaskan nonprofit that NOAA has worked with, collected and transported over 

1 million pounds of marine debris from remote Alaska beaches in 

2015 alone, using helicopters, barges, other ships with only a small 

crew of dedicated volunteers. 

So what additional resources does your program require—or not 

just resources, but ideas on trying to get to some of these remote 

cleanup areas? Obviously, in Alaska, it’s the most extreme cases, 

but I’m sure it exists in Michigan and other parts of the country, 

and this is a challenge for all of us. 

Ms. WALLACE. Remote areas are an incredible challenge. That 

specific effort that the Gulf of Alaska Keeper led in 2015 was 

logistically amazing. You know, the fact that they were able to helicopter debris off these remote beaches, get them onto a barge, and 

then have that barge go down to Seattle really, I think, showcased 

exactly some of those challenges. We’re also working with Sitka 

Sound Science Center in some very remote Bering Sea communities 

to remove debris that is most likely not being generated by those 

communities. It’s washing ashore from offshore. 

So I think it really does become just leaning on those partners 

that have that technical expertise and providing the funding that 

they need. So a lot of those partners have received funding through 

our competitive grants, and a lot of times, for the areas that are 

more remote, it costs more, and they get the higher grants, you 

know, and that’s part of it. 

But you’re absolutely right. Removal has immediate ecosystem 

benefits, economic benefits. It’s something we’re going to keep 

doing. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Just one final question related to that. How 

do we—you know, NOAA is doing a great job, and we’re all complimenting you. Our bill looks to reinforce and expand your efforts. 

But how do we empower these organizations that are on the 

ground that are literally the front lines, like Gulf of Alaska Keeper 

and many, many others that Senator Peters mentioned, even some 

of the classroom activities? How do we work to further partner, but 

27 

empower them to be able to effectively do this in a more creative 

way? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think one of the things we’ve been very 

proud of is that a lot of our partners get funding from us to get 

a project started, and then they actually make that project sustainable by finding funding elsewhere or, you know, thinking about innovative solutions. 

So one of the things we’re doing right now that’s kind of a new, 

interesting idea is in Dutch Harbor, looking at collecting fishing 

nets that have been accumulating there forever, but looking at public-private partnerships, so working with Matson and Trident to actually collect the gear, truck it down to Seattle, and then actually 

sending it to Denmark to be recycled. I think that’s one of the 

things we have to keep thinking about, is how do we get creative 

with the resources we have and the partners that are interested 

and have resources to give. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Great. Well, again, we’ll continue to work on 

that, and I appreciate your efforts in that regard. 

I think we have a couple of other senators who are interested in 

asking the panel some additional questions. 

Senator Blumenthal. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM CONNECTICUT 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to ask a question about cruise ships. We all know that 

cruise ships are a potential source of debris and waste. Let me ask 

you when cruise ships sail along the coast of the United States and 

out to sea, do you think that the current laws are sufficient to protect against the kinds of pollution they can cause, the current treaties and rules? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, cruise ships and all ships are subject to 

MARPOL Annex V, so they are not allowed to dump waste, specifically plastic waste or household waste, paper waste, in all areas. 

So the laws are there. I think the question becomes an enforcement 

issue, and that would be a question for our colleagues at the Coast 

Guard. But the laws are in place, and we are subject to those laws. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Well, on enforcement, can you make some 

suggestions for how either the rules can be made more enforceable 

or what can be done to ensure greater enforcement? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, I think, again, I probably would want to 

defer to my colleagues at the Coast Guard since they are the lead 

for enforcement. I think in any case, certainly, education about the 

laws that do exist and really requiring our partners in all industries to be able to follow those are very important. But I think that 

may be a Coast Guard question to follow up on on the specific enforcement that they do with cruise ships. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Mr. Balton? 

Mr. BALTON. I’m not an expert on the regulation of cruise ships, 

but I can tell you this, that the cruise line industry has proven 

itself willing in the past to work with our government to use the 

cruises themselves as ways to educate the people on it about the 

marine environment, including about marine pollution issues, including from the ships themselves. So one other idea that might be 

28 

worth pursuing is partnerships with CLIA and other cruise line industry associations to actually advance awareness of marine pollution problems. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Are there specific efforts at education that 

you think should be undertaken? 

Mr. BALTON. So another place where people have the best interest in keeping the marine environment pristine are the coastal resort communities and the big hotels. And, once again, you can enlist these partners to try to educate their consumers, the people 

who come to these places, on the importance of limiting trash. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. When you talk about education, do you 

mean education of passengers on the cruise ships or education of 

the managers and owners of the cruise ships? 

Mr. BALTON. I would say both. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. But maybe you can tell me how passengers on a cruise ship—I realize they may toss stuff overboard, 

but the major source of contamination is from the waste emanating 

from the cruise ships, correct? 

Mr. BALTON. Yes, so—— 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. So, really, when you talk about education, 

isn’t the best means of education deterrence, in other words, enforcement? 

Mr. BALTON. Yes, sir. That makes sense. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. So that brings us back to enforcement. Do 

you have any opinions on enforcement? Is there sufficient enforcement? 

Mr. BALTON. Again, you should probably ask that question of 

somebody who is involved in enforcement of those laws, and that 

would principally be the Coast Guard, and also some colleagues in 

the Department of Justice involved in environmental enforcement 

issues of this kind. 

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Senator Markey. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD MARKEY, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. Mr. 

Chairman, President Kennedy was right when he once said at the 

shores of the Atlantic Ocean that all of us have in our veins the 

exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, 

and, therefore, we have salt in our blood and our sweat and in our 

tears. We are tied to the ocean, and when we go back to the sea, 

whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence 

we came. 

The Atlantic Ocean, Mr. Chairman, is a natural wonder. President Kennedy is correct. And it is also an economic engine supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in key industries such as 

fishing and tourism. Fishing off of the East Coast states produces 

roughly $1.75 billion in direct value for those states and more than 

$4 billion in total economic activity each year. Tourism on the East 

Coast draws visitors to our beaches and our coastlines. It generates 

hundreds of billions of dollars in additional economic activity and 

supports an estimated 800,000 jobs. 

29 

Marine debris, which can range from larger items like plastic 

bags, water bottles, or other pieces of trash to microscopic plastic 

particles is a threat to this vital oceanic wonder and also to the industries in New England and other East Coast states that have 

sustained families in their employment for generations. 

During the international coastal cleanup days in the fall of 2016, 

2,500 volunteers in Massachusetts collected over 13,000 pounds of 

marine debris on 164 miles of Massachusetts’ beaches and waterways. But this is a tiny amount compared to the estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic that makes its way into the ocean each 

year. 

Ms. Wallace, how can this massive amount of marine debris 

harm not only our marine life and environment but also industries 

like the fishing industry of Massachusetts? 

Ms. WALLACE. Marine debris can have a big economic impact 

both on—from a tourism standpoint, but also from a fishing standpoint. So one of the things that NOAA did a few years ago was do 

a comprehensive study looking at the economic impact of derelict 

crab pots in Chesapeake Bay. We found that if you remove targeted 

areas where there are a lot of traps that accumulate all at once, 

you can actually have an impact of 38 million pounds of crab harvest, which equates to $33 million. That’s annually. 

We have done similar work in Massachusetts with the lobster 

fisheries. So we’ve worked with the Department of Marine Fisheries to look at how many lobster are actually caught in lost fishing 

gear, and it’s substantial. So I think looking at how we can look 

to prevent derelict fishing gear from being lost—but a lot of times, 

you really can’t prevent it. So if we know where there are areas 

that we can actually remove to have that biggest impact is what 

we want to do, because these are really big numbers. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you. So what are the impacts of marine 

debris on fish stocks? Does it impact their ability to reproduce? 

Does it make them more susceptible to disease or other environmental stress? How else does it harm that fishing stock? 

Ms. WALLACE. Well, fishing gear is extremely efficient at catching fish or crabs or lobster, and when it’s lost, it will continue to 

do so for years. We found, even in Massachusetts, where lobster 

pots can continue to fish for decades. So what we want to be able 

to do is minimize that, because that’s a huge, huge natural resource impact and also an economic impact on fishermen. 

Senator MARKEY. So the New England Aquarium has been participating in a campaign called ‘‘In Our Hands,’’ which is encouraging the public to choose alternatives over single use plastic. 

Would more organically based plastics help reduce marine debris? 

And how can we take this model to encourage using less single use 

plastic on a larger scale? 

Ms. WALLACE. I think materials that are made of natural items 

obviously will degrade quickly in the environment, and so that’s 

something we should look at. Biodegradable plastics can be a little 

bit of a misnomer, because they may not ever fully degrade in 

ocean conditions, and we don’t want to give people the license to 

be able to toss that product, if they think it’s biodegradable, into 

the ocean. So I think we have to be careful about looking for alterVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
30 

native materials—certainly something that will be important in 

solving the problem. 

Senator MARKEY. Great. And as the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South 

and Central Asian Affairs, I’m curious, Mr. Balton, about your 

work in East Asia. Your testimony discusses the State Department’s efforts to work with rapidly developing Asian economies to 

reduce marine debris, especially micro plastics. International cooperation, especially with developing economies in Asia, is essential 

to reducing the amount of waste in our ocean. 

How does marine debris from Asia impact our environment and 

industries here in the United States? 

Mr. BALTON. Mostly because the trash that is dumped in the 

ocean there or makes its way into the ocean there arrives on our 

shores in Hawaii and Alaska and the West Coast. But we have 

found some venues in which to engage with the Asian producers of 

marine debris. I was talking earlier in the hearing about our efforts 

to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to strengthen 

waste management capabilities in these Asian states. We’re trying 

to support Indonesia, which has articulated a goal of reducing its 

marine debris pollution by 70 percent by 2025. 

Senator MARKEY. Can I just ask you on that issue of Indonesia’s 

goal of reducing it by 70 percent by 2025? 

Mr. BALTON. Yes. 

Senator MARKEY. What is the role the State Department is playing, our government is playing, in helping the Indonesian government to accomplish that goal? 

Mr. BALTON. We’re trying to connect people in Indonesia with the 

experts in the United States who know about this. For example, we 

sponsored Dr. Jambeck from the University of Georgia, one of our 

leading experts, to go to Indonesia to work with the officials there 

and to raise awareness of this problem. So we see ourselves as a 

facilitator of these types of activities. 

Senator MARKEY. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, thank you so much for 

holding this very important hearing. I just think it spotlights something that is critical for us to deal with on a bipartisan basis. 

Thank you. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Markey, and we appreciate your strong support on this. 

I also just want to mention—Ambassador Balton, you talked 

about partnerships. I think—we’ve been talking about how this bill 

has broad-based bipartisan support. It also has strong, strong support across different sectors of advocacy groups, environmental 

groups, industry groups, and in that regard, I’d like to submit for 

the record the statement for the record by the American Chemistry 

Council, and I’m going to submit that for the record, without objection. 

[The information referred to follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL

Thank you Chairman Sullivan and Ranking Member Peters for your leadership 

in holding this important hearing. The American Chemistry Council represents the 

leading companies engaged in the business of chemistry. ACC member companies 

31 

i Jenna R. Jambeck et al., Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean. Science, 13 Feb. 

2015, Vol. 347, Issue 6223, pp. 768–771, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768 

apply the science of chemistry to create innovative products that make people’s lives 

better, healthier and safer, and to help solve society’s greatest challenges. 

The business of chemistry is a $768 billion enterprise and a key element of the 

Nation’s economy. Over 26 percent of U.S. GDP is generated from industries that 

rely on chemistry, ranging from agriculture to oil and gas production, from semiconductors and electronics to packaging and vehicles, and from pharmaceuticals to 

residential and commercial energy-efficient building products. Our industry directly 

employs over 810,000 Americans in high-paying jobs, and each of those jobs supports an additional 6.3 American jobs in other manufacturing industries. Every day, 

the products of chemistry, including many plastics, improve our quality of life while 

contributing to sustainability by allowing us to do more with less. Today’s chemistry 

and plastics help to reduce energy use, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and significantly reduce waste. 

ACC welcomed the recent introduction of S. 756, the ‘‘Saving Our Seas Act,’’ by 

Senators Sullivan, Whitehouse, Peters, Booker, Inhofe, Murkowski and Tillis, and 

appreciates the opportunity to submit a statement for the record for today’s Senate 

Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard hearing entitled ‘‘Marine Debris: Efforts on Marine Debris in the Oceans and Great 

Lakes.’’ We strongly support reauthorization of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program and 

the Act’s emphasis on promoting international action to reduce marine debris. 

Despite ocean health becoming a global priority, every year more and more trash 

enters the world’s waterways. Experts agree that to stem the tide of marine litter, 

we must prevent land-based trash from reaching our oceans in the first place. We 

must do so urgently, with an initial focus on parts of the world where waste management systems currently are lacking. This includes reducing waste, improving collection and sortation, and expanding access to the latest recycling and recovery technologies. A study by Jambeck et al., 2015, published in Science magazine estimates 

that 60 percent of the world’s trash comes from just five rapidly developing countries (China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka).i ACC fully supports several features in this much needed bill, including provisions to further study 

land-based waste management solutions and causes of marine debris, and increased 

investment and technical assistance to help expand waste management systems in 

rapidly industrializing nations. 

Plastics makers currently have more than 260 projects underway around the globe 

to combat marine litter. Our combined efforts to research and prevent marine debris 

under the ‘‘Declaration of the Global Plastics Industry for Solutions on Marine Litter,’’ have grown each year since 2011, when it was launched. Signed by 70 plastics 

associations in 35 countries, the declaration focuses on education, public policy, best 

practices, plastics recycling and recovery, plastic pellet containment, and research. 

In addition, we are working with leaders in regions where plastics leakage into 

the ocean is the highest to ensure that waste management systems are a priority 

and to catalyze investment in those systems. And we are working with the United 

Nations to provide technical expertise and a range of commitments under the Global 

Partnership on Marine Litter. 

People around the world rely on plastics in innumerable ways. Durable and lightweight, plastics provide important societal benefits including energy and resource 

savings, food waste prevention, improved healthcare and consumer protection. But 

when plastics are improperly managed, their full sustainability benefits aren’t realized. Solutions require the cooperation of industry, civil society and other stakeholders to effect meaningful change. 

Companies that use chemistry to make plastics for a range of packaging and consumer goods that help us to live more sustainably applaud the Saving Our Seas Act, 

and we are fully committed to the goal of keeping waste of all kinds out of our 

ocean. We look forward to continuing our work with the Congress, its Oceans Caucuses, NOAA, the State Department and all other stakeholders to enhance international engagement in improving land-based waste management practices to address marine debris, and the bill’s sponsors to bring this legislation to the President’s desk. 

Senator SULLIVAN. The first panel is excused. I thought that was 

an excellent, excellent discussion of this important issue. We want 

to thank you for your work on this, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on this important issue. 

32 

I would like to call up Dr. Melissa Duhaime, Assistant Professor 

from the University of Michigan, to lead our second panel. 

Dr. Duhaime, welcome. Thank you for listening to the first panel, 

and we look forward to hearing your testimony. I believe that we 

will also have Senator Whitehouse joining you to testify here in a 

few minutes. But we’d like you to begin. So, please, welcome. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MELISSA B. DUHAIME, PH.D., 

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY 

AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 

Dr. DUHAIME. Good morning. I thank Chairman Sullivan and my 

Michigan senator, Ranking Member Peters, and the Subcommittee 

members for inviting me to today’s hearing. As a representative of 

the research community, I appreciate being at this table and part 

of these discussions. 

My name is Melissa Duhaime, and I’m a Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I studied at Cornell University, and I hold a Doctorate from 

the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology. 

I’ve worked in ocean and freshwater sciences for over a decade, 

and I’ve sampled their studied plastics around the globe, but most 

extensively in the Great Lakes over the last five years. In that 

time, we’ve learned that plastic pollutants are widely present in 

the Great Lakes and impact food supplies of aquatic animals but 

with unknown consequences to human health. 

A study out last week reported that almost 80 percent of plastic 

ever produced still remains in landfills or dispersed in the environment today. I’ve heard a lot of analogies today, so I’ll add one more 

to that. That represents 10 times the biomass of humans on this 

planet. So for every one of us in here, there are 10 more of us out 

there in plastic. Each year, 8 million tons of plastic find its way 

into our oceans. These numbers will continue to rise as the global 

production of plastic continues to increase exponentially, as we’ve 

heard a lot about today. 

These trends are no different in freshwater. While most research 

has focused on the distribution and impacts of marine litter, most 

plastic pollution originates on land. Fresh water bodies serve as 

conduits for the transport of this plastic to the oceans, and humans 

live in closer contact with freshwater. Ninety percent of the world’s 

population live only six miles from a freshwater body. 

As the largest freshwater system on the planet, the Great Lakes 

hold one-fifth of the world’s surface freshwater, and these are arguably one of the most valuable national security assets. In 2014, my 

lab led the largest survey to date of Great Lakes plastic pollution. 

We collected and counted surface plastic as small as one-tenth of 

a millimeter from over 100 samples. 

We found plastic at every site. The sample with the highest concentration of plastic from the Detroit River contained almost 2 million plastics per square kilometer. That’s four times higher than 

yet reported in the surface of the Great Lakes and among the highest ever reported in nature. The highest concentrations of plastics 

were found near Great Lakes cities, in river plumes, directly at the 

33 

output of waste water treatment plants, and following storm 

events. 

As with all plastic pollution, the smallest plastics dominated our 

samples. Given this trend, new analytical techniques are needed to 

quantify with higher confidence and higher throughput the micro 

and especially nano-sized plastics, of which we know near nothing 

about but whose health risks would be the highest. Nanoplastics 

have the potential to pass cell membranes, delivering toxins and directly interfering with metabolic pathways. 

In ongoing laboratory studies at the University of Michigan, 

Lake Michigan Quagga mussels and Chironomid worms consume 

nano-sized plastic, mistaking them for food. These organisms, the 

mussels and these worms, are central to the Great Lakes food web. 

The worms are a food source for all the foraging fish, which are 

then consumed by the greater fish-eating fishes, such as salmon, 

trout, bass, and walleye, and later by humans. 

In the water, these plastics serve as sponges of persistent organic 

pollutants. Two of these toxins, which are known carcinogens that 

can also interfere with reproduction, PAHs and PCBs, were detected on plastic from Lake Sinclair, the Detroit River, and near 

the Cleveland Waste Water Treatment Plant output. Also, antibiotics, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides have been detected 

on plastic in Lake Erie. The implications of these findings, particularly for the living creatures that eat the plastics, have not yet 

been explored. 

So, in summary, the basic research has shown that plastic is everywhere. It’s in all oceans on the planet, in the Great Lakes, in 

remote alpine lakes, in beer and fish sold for human consumption, 

and it’s near certain that humans are consuming plastic. In the 

wake of these discoveries, the U.N. has declared plastic pollution 

among the most critical emerging environmental issues of our time, 

and the scientific consensus is that plastic pollution must be reduced to avoid risk of irreversible ecosystem harm. 

As of today, the direct human health consequences of plastic are 

unknown. Continued basic research really is central to our ability 

to define these environmental risks and the economic and public 

health impacts of plastic pollution. I look forward to sharing future 

findings with you all and continuing to be a resource to the Committee. 

I thank you, and I look forward to questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Duhaime follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MELISSA B. DUHAIME, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, 

DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Disclaimer 

The findings and perspectives presented in this testimony represent the author’s 

own professional assessment as an independent academic researcher. They should 

not be taken to reflect the views of the University of Michigan, the author’s past 

affiliations, or funders present or past. 

Summary Statement 

I wish to thank Chairman Sullivan, and my Michigan Senator, Ranking Member 

Peters, as well as the members of the Subcommittee for inviting me to today’s hearing. As a representative of the basic research community, I appreciate being at this 

table and part of these discussions. 

34 

My name is Melissa Duhaime and I am an assistant professor at the University 

of Michigan in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. I studied biology at Cornell University and hold a doctorate from the Max Planck Institute for 

Marine Microbiology in Germany. 

I have worked in ocean and freshwater sciences for over a decade, studying plastics across the world’s oceans, and most extensively in the Great Lakes, where I 

began my career in Michigan 5 years ago—in fact, that time marked the very inception of this young research field. 

Plastic hit the consumer market after WWII, when the economics of this cheap 

good and the convenience of a throw away culture took off. 60 percent of plastic ever 

produced—5 billion tons—still remains in landfills or dispersed in the environment 

today. This is equivalent to 10 times the biomass of all humans on Earth. For each 

of us in this room, there are 10 of us made of plastic out there. Each year, 5–13 

million tons of plastic enter the oceans. These numbers will continue to rise the 

global production of plastic goods continues to increase exponentially. The trends 

are no different in the Great Lakes. 

In 2014, we carried out the largest survey to date of Great Lakes surface plastic 

pollution, traversing Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair, and Erie. We collected surface-floating plastic down to one-tenth of a millimeter. We found plastic at every site 

sampled. The sample with the highest total concentration of plastic (in the Detroit 

River) contained almost 2 million particles per km, 4-times higher than yet reported 

in the surface of the Great Lakes. 

The highest concentrations of plastic were found near populated Great Lakes cities, in river plumes, directly at the effluent of wastewater treatment plants, and following storm events. 

As with all plastic pollution, the smallest plastics dominated all samples. Given 

this trend, it is essential that more attention be paid to the smallest size classes 

of plastic, especially the nanoscale, of which we know near-nothing about, but whose 

health risks will be highest. 

The vast majority of plastic detected with secondary plastic fragments, broken 

down from larger pieces—not the microbeads reported to dominate in the first study 

of Great Lakes plastic. 

Plastic floating in water serves as sponges of toxic persistent organic pollutants 

(or ‘‘POPs’’) that are consumed when plastics are. Two carcinogens, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated bisphenyls (PCBs), were detected on plastic 

from Lake St Clair, the Detroit River plume, and Cleveland WWTP effluent. Also, 

antibiotics, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides have been detected on plastic in 

Lake Erie. The implications of these of findings have not yet been explored. 

In a U–M study of fish and mussels collected from the Great Lakes, roughly onequarter of all Great Lakes fishes and one-third of bivalves examined contained plastic fibers in their stomachs. 

In laboratory studies, Lake Michigan Quagga mussels and Chironomid worms 

consume nano-sized plastic, mistaking them for food. These organisms, especially 

the worms, are central to the Great Lakes food web. They are a food source for all 

the foraging fish, which are then consumed by greater ‘‘fish-eating fishes’’, such as 

salmon, trout, bass, and walleye. 

Research is needed to define the effects of consumption and to determine the economic and public health impacts of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. 

In summary, basic research has shown the plastic is everywhere, in all oceans on 

the planet, remote alpine lakes, in the Great Lakes, and in beer and fish sold for 

human consumption. It is near certain that humans are consuming plastic. 

In the wake of these discoveries, the United Nations has declared plastic pollution 

among the most critical emerging environmental issues of our time. The scientific 

consensus is that plastic pollution must be reduced to avoid the risk of irreversible 

ecosystem harm. 

The direct human health consequences of plastic pollution are unknown, but this 

is the essential frontier of basic research. 

As put by environmental toxicologist, David Sedlak, ‘‘Although we are all responsible for microplastics in the environment, getting the entire world to rethink the 

way it uses synthetic polymers would be a long, arduous process requiring compelling evidence of severe environmental risks.’’ 

Basic research is critical to our ability to understand the extent and implications 

of this issue. I look forward to sharing future findings with you and continuing to 

be a resource to the Committee. I look forward to your questions now and in the 

future. Thank you. 

35 

ahttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/climate/plastic-pollution-study-science-advances.html 

?mcubz=0 

PLASTIC POLLUTION IN THE GREAT LAKES

I. Introduction 

The accumulation of plastic debris in nature is ‘‘one of the most ubiquitous and 

long-lasting recent changes to the surface of our planet.’’ 1 Since plastic hit the consumer markets in the 1950s, 60 percent of plastic produced—4.9 billion metric 

tons—still remains in landfills or is inadvertently dispersed in the environment.a

That is 10 times more than the biomass of humans on the planet. Each year, 5– 

13 million tons of plastic find its way into our oceans.2 In the absence of mechanisms to incentivize improved waste management and behavior change, this number 

will continue to rise, reflecting the exponentially increasing global production of 

plastic goods.3

Aquatic organisms ingest plastic pollutants,4,5 which results in energetic and fitness costs 6,7 and other morbid impacts.8 Microscopic plastic is found in fish and 

shellfish sold for human consumption at seafood markets around the world, including in Europe 9 and in the U.S.10 There is a high likelihood that humans are consuming this plastic. The health consequences of this are unknown. 

In the wake of these discoveries, the United Nations has declared plastic pollution 

among the most critical emerging environmental issues of our time.11 The scientific 

consensus is that plastic pollution must be reduced to avoid the risk of irreversible 

ecosystem harm.12

While most research has focused on the distribution and impacts of marine litter, 

most plastic pollution originates on land.13 As such, freshwater bodies serve as conduits for the transport of plastic litter to the ocean. Humans live in close contact with 

freshwater. 90 percent of the world’s population lives 6 miles from a freshwater 

body.14

Recently, plastic has been documented in the Great Lakes at some of the highest 

concentrations seen on the planet. Yet, too little is known about the fate of this plastic and its role in ecosystem dynamics to assess environmental risk and predict the 

impacts on one fifth of the world’s surface freshwater and arguably one of our most 

valuable national security assets. 

This discussion focuses on recent findings led by our team at the University of 

Michigan regarding plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. It (1) reports the quantification, distribution, and modeled transport of Great Lakes plastic debris, (2) describes the carcinogenic toxins that hitch a ride on Great Lakes plastic, (3) demonstrates that organisms central to the Great Lakes food web consume plastic, and 

(4) explores new frontiers in the detection of nano-sized plastic. The report concludes 

by highlighting recommendations for future research directions. These aim at addressing current knowledge gaps in our ability to assess environmental risks of this 

pervasive, persistent pollutant—in the Great Lakes and beyond. 

II. Plastic Pollution In The Great Lakes 

In 2014, we carried out the largest survey to date of Great Lakes surface plastic 

pollution, quantifying plastic in over 100 samples collected across Lakes Superior, 

Huron, St. Clair and Erie.15 With funds from the University of Michigan Water Center and Erb Family foundation, as well as a generous donation of time, research vessel, and fuel by citizen scientist, David Brooks (resident of Chelsea, MI), we traversed these lakes and collected surface-floating plastic down to 100 μm—one-tenth 

of a millimeter, smaller than a period on this page. 

We have worked for four years with NOAA’s Marine Debris Program to develop 

an Action Plan for the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes plastic research community 

is incredibly collaborative and connected, in large part due to the organizing efforts 

of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program in the region. I have worked with the International Joint Commission to establish recommendations on how to address the 

problem of plastic pollution in our Great Lakes. Our data have contributed to followup research programs and private funding, remediation action plans, and new 

knowledge disseminated to the public through outreach initiatives around the Great 

Lakes. Our work has been published in peer-reviewed journals 15-17 and key elements are summarized below. 

A. Abundance and Distribution 

While floating plastic bottles and bags, styrofoam coolers, straws, old tires, and 

cigarette butts disrupt our intrinsic connection with ‘‘pristine’’ natural spaces, most 

Great Lakes plastic is small, nearly invisible ‘‘microplastic’’ (<5 millimeters in size). 

36 

Figure 1. A calm and seemingly clean Lake Erie (left), photo credit, Melissa Freeland; particles collected following a storm event from the surface of Lake Erie at the Cleveland wastewater treatment plant effluent site (right), many of which proved to be ‘‘microplastic’’ (defined 

as plastic <5 mm in size). 

What we collected in our field survey were not the pristine samples we had collected previously across the world’s oceans, which consisted primarily of plastic and 

little else. Rather, with each surface trawl, we pulled up pounds and pounds of biomass—such as algae, insect larvae, sticks, and leaf litter. Enmeshed in this was 

microscale plastic trash (Figure 2). 

Figure 2. From 15. Samples from Great Lakes plastic survey of 2014 at various stages of processing, including examples of different shape classes. Arrows indicate plastic amidst co-sampled 

nonplastic organic matter; blue: fragment, dark red: line, yellow: nurdles, cyan: sphere/bead, 


725DUHAI1.eps 725DUHAI2.eps
37 

brown: fiber. (A) Bulk sample directly upon retrieval from surface net on a stack of a series of 

sieves. This sample contained an abundance of algal biomass. (B) Bulk sample drying on a 53 

μm mesh net. (C) Sample after enzymatic processing, which included an incubation in hydrogen 

peroxide that bleached much of the non-plastic organic matter. This bleaching aided in differentiating plastic (tended to retain color) from non-plastic (prone to bleaching) particles. (D) Examples of plastic of sphere class; zoomed in subset of sample in (B). (E) Smallest size fraction (106– 

1,000 μm) after hydrogen peroxide treatment. Note colored plastic fibers (brown arrows) enmeshed in mass of natural fibers bleached white from hydrogen peroxide treatment. (F–H) Examples of plastic of fragment, film and line shape classes, respectively; ruler markings are in 

cm units. (J,I) Examples of plastic of paint chip and fiber shape classes, respectively; grid 

squares are in 5 mm units. 

We found plastic at every site sampled in this Great Lakes study (Figure 3). The 

sample with the highest total concentration of plastic (in the Detroit River) contained almost 2 million particles km,-2, a 4-fold higher concentration than yet reported in the surface of the Great Lakes.18,19

Figure 3. Maps of plastic concentrations across the lakes sampled; magnitude of concentration 

is depicted by size of circle around trawl location. Note, fiber counts are not included in these 

figures, as their quantification is error prone. (A) Mapped counts of plastic litter >4,750 μm. (B) 

Mapped counts of plastic litter 1,000–4,750 μm. (C) Mapped counts of plastic litter 106–1,000 

μm. (D) Total mapped counts for the stations where all three size classes were quantified. 

Across our Great Lakes study and in nearly all studies to date, the smallest plastics dominate. The vast majority of plastic counted was <1 mm in size (Figure 4A), 

regardless of water body or types of stations sampled. Smaller plastic particles stay 

at the water surface longer than larger particles of the same composition and 

shape 20,21 and are more readily consumed by smaller organisms in aquatic food 

webs.22 The larger surface area to volume ratios of these small plastics increases 

their potential to deliver toxic chemicals (discussed below) to the organisms that 

consume them.1,23 Given this trend, it is essential that future studies document submillimeter (nanoscale) plastics and develop innovative high-throughput solutions to 

capture and quantify nanoscale plastics. The ecosystem risks of nanoscale plastics 

may be highest due to subcellular effects 24—but, due to technical limitations, they 

have yet to be identified or quantified in natural systems. We have begun addressing this issue (see section on Organismal Impacts, below). 


725DUHAI3.eps
38 

Figure 4. (A) Boxplots depicting the means and spreads of plastic counts by particle size class 

(from smallest to largest, left to right). (B) Boxplots depicting the means and spreads of plastic 

counts by size class, station type, and water body: Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, 

the Detroit River, Lake Erie, and the Niagara River. 

The highest concentrations of plastic were found near populated urban cities, in 

river plumes, directly at the effluent of wastewater treatment plants (Figures 3–4), 

and following storm events. The Cleveland, OH, sample was collected at a WWTP 

effluent site immediately following a massive rainstorm (Figure 1, right panel; Figure 3A). We suspect we captured a combined sewage overflow event, whereby plastic 

in runoff that bypassed the treatment plant was delivered to the lake with no treatment. 

Overall, these findings support previous reports of a correlation between plastic 

concentrations and proximity to urban centers in the Great Lakes.25 Attributes that 

are likely to contribute to elevated plastic concentrations in urban vs. non-urban 

locales include higher population densities,2 increased atmospheric inputs (including 

plastic; 26), and increased areas of impervious substrate.25 Increasing the degree of 

pervious substrate in watersheds, such as the implementation of green infrastructure 

catchments, should be explored as an effective measure to capture plastic debris in 

runoff and to reduce loads to waterways. As the number of storm events is expected 

to increase with a changing climate,27 such innovations are timely to buffer 

preventatively our freshwater systems from being inundated with stormwater-delivered debris. 

Most Great Lakes plastic appears to be ‘‘secondary microplastics’’ broken down 

from larger pieces of debris (Fig. 5). This counters the first report of plastic from 

the Great Lakes that reported the majority to be in the form of spherical plastic 

microbeads,18 which have since been banned from rinse-off cosmetics.28


725DUHAI4.eps
39 

Figure 5. Stacked barplot depicting the relative abundances of different shape classes amongst 

plastic from each size class. The bar to 100 percent for each size class represent the relative 

abundance of different shape classes when fibers were not included in the total counts; the portion above 100 percent represents the relative abundance of fibers in the total counts. 

Our Great Lakes study was the first survey of freshwater plastic litter to address 

variability in counts by conducting replicate trawls at each of 38 stations. With this 

replication, we were able to determine that the accuracy of a single trawl at one 

station was quite low. Repeated trawls at the same location can vary in precision 

by up to 3-fold. Evidence suggests that this variability is due to undersampling. In 

other words, to get reliable data, we must sample multiple times at each site and 

each sample must be larger. 

Yet, across this field of research, replication is nearly never performed due to the 

massive investment that would be needed for data collection. Currently the most 

common method for quantification of plastic depends near-exclusively on visual sorting and counting. 

Analytical approaches have been employed that rely on spectroscopic techniques 

(e.g., fourier transform infrared spectroscopys—FTIR, Raman spectroscopy) to confirm whether particles are known synthetic polymers. But as of yet, these approaches are low-throughput and are limited by our inability to identify complex 

(often proprietary) mixtures of polymers and dyes outside the standard known polymer classes. 

The development of analytical techniques for high throughput, high confidence 

plastic counts is critically needed. Such advancements will pave the way for accelerated data collection, down to nano-sized particle classes, and will drastically improve the reliability and value of future data generated. 


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bhttp://www.ukmarinesac.org.uk/activities/water-quality/wq8_40.htm 

B. Modeled Transport 

In the absence of an inexpensive, rapid, and accurate method to quantify plastic 

debris on large temporal and spatial scales, hydrodynamic models were applied to 

predict the plastic distribution and transport of plastic in one of the Great Lakes, 

Lake Erie (D. Beletsky, R. Beletsky; U–M Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research; NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Labs; Ann Arbor, MI). 

Our plastic transport model predicted habitats along the southern coast of Lake 

Erie to be most affected by plastic pollution (Figure 6).15

Figure 6. (A) The modeled distribution of neutrally buoyant particles in Lake Erie at the end 

of month-long simulated transport in June, July, and August for 6 years. For visual simplicity, 

8 of the 29 sources (influents) are depicted: the Raisin Rv. (magenta), Detroit Rv. (cyan), Kettle 

Rv. (purple), Grand Rv. (turquoise), Chautauqua Rv. (blue), Conneaut Rv. (orange), Cleveland 

WWTP (red), and Vermillion Rv. (green). (B) Mean transport vectors summarizing the positions 

of all particles at the end of month at each of the same eight representative sources (similarly 

colored coded). The six vectors per source represent mean transport for each of the 6 years. The 

6-year mean vector is shown in black at each input. 

In most months, rather than moving offshore, the model predicted longshore 

transport from coastal sources (Figure 6A). This model indicates that future plastic 

pollution mitigation and management efforts in Lake Erie should focus on its southern shore and downstream of urbanized areas. Extending this plastic transport 

model to the other four Great Lakes will similarly inform future efforts across this 

critical watershed. 

C. Plastic-adsorbed Toxins 

Plastic floating in water serve as veritable sponges of toxic persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Plastic additives leach from plastics as they degrade (e.g., 

phthalates, BPA), induce toxic effects in aquatic organisms,29 and bioaccumulate in 

plastic-ingesting organisms 4,7 with unknown consequences. 

Two carcinogens, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated 

bisphenyls (PCBs), were detected on plastic samples collected from Lake St Clair, 

the Detroit River plume, and Cleveland WWTP effluent. PAHs were detected on 

plastics at concentrations ranging from 3500–17,000 ng/g; PCBs ranged from 4–99 

ng/g (L Rios Mendoza; U–W Superior). The levels of PAHs measured on individual 

pieces of surface-floating plastic are 10 to 100 times higher than concentrations considered hazardous to sediment-dwelling organisms (6–150 ng/gb). Concentrations of 

PCBs measured on plastic are on the order measured in plankton in the Great 

Lakes.[Hornbuckle 2006] Both PAHs and PCBs bioaccumulate with the potential to biomagnify, meaning that due to their persistence in the environment and the inability 


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of some organisms to metabolize the compounds, toxins can be passed to consumers 

in prey. Biomagnification happens across the food web for PCBs and only in low levels (algae and lower invertebrates) for PAHs. This results in concentrations of PCBs 

in apex predators at the top of the food chain higher than would be expected based 

on transfer from water alone. 

Beyond the suite of POP toxins most plastic researchers screen for, researchers 

at the University of Michigan conducted the first survey of non-target toxins on 

plastics in the Great Lakes. Antibiotics, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides were 

identified on plastic in Lake Erie (K Wigginton; U–M Civil and Environmental Engineering). The implications of these of findings have not yet been explored. 

D. Organismal and Food Web Impacts 

In a study of fish and mussels collected from the Great lakes, roughly one-quarter 

of all Great Lakes fishes and one-third of bivalves examined contained plastic fibers 

in their stomach contents (Larissa Sano, University of Michigan). Of the particles 

documented in the fishes, 100 percent were fibers. A systematic survey of the incidence and population-level impacts of consumption of micro-and nanoplastics across 

the Great Lakes biota is needed. 

In collaboration with the Banaszak Holl Lab at the University of Michigan and 

the San Francisco Estuary Institute, with funds from the Gordon and Betty Moore 

Foundation and NSF–REU program, we have developed and applied a new method 

to identify nanoscale plastic pollution (Figure 7). This method combines atomic force 

microscopy (AFM) with infrared spectroscopy (IR) create infrared spectra of individual micro-and nanoplastics at the individual particle-level. 

Figure 7. (A) A monolayer of beads visualized using AFM. (B) Red dot indicates polystyrene 

bead from which spectrum generated in panel C was obtained. (C) IR spectrum indicating characteristic peaks of polystyrene at 1452 cm-1 and 1492 cm-1. Data generated by Rachel Merzel, 

Banaszak Holl Lab (University of Michigan). 

We have confirmed the uptake of nanoplastics by Great Lakes filter feeders, a first 

step in defining the impact of their consumption on the Great Lakes food web. 

Quagga mussels collected from Lake Michigan were fed fluorescently dyed nanoplastics the same size and at roughly the same concentration as their algal food 

source (0.01 and 0.1 picomolar; Figure 8). The mussels ingested the nanoplastic in 

a manner analogous to food consumption. The patterns observed in the gill tissue 

(Figure 8C) follow those of normal food accumulation, moving from the gills to the 

intestines. Mussels have internal mechanisms to reject particles they do not intend 

to digest. These data suggest the nanoplastics are not rejected by Lake Michigan 

Quagga mussels, but rather are mistaken for food. When smaller beads were used 

(200 nm), they also were observed in the gills and digestive tract. The Banaszak 

Holl lab will confirm whether such small beads are able to pass directly across cell 

membranes, which would pose a more lethal threat. 


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chttp://www.molluscs.at/bivalvia/index.html?/bivalvia/main.html 

dhttps://7salemanimalkingdom.wikispaces.com/Mollusks 

Figure 8. (A) Imagec of mussel filter feeding. Plastic and food (plankton) enter the mussel in 

inhaled water, waste exits in exhaled water. (B) Diagramd of mussel anatomy. Note gills, 

inhalent and exhalent siphons, and intestines. (C) Microscopy images of internal structures of 

Lake Michigan Quagga mussels after being fed their algal food source along with 0.1 picomolar 

(top) and 0.01 picomolar (bottom) fluorescent plastic spheres. Plastic particles are the bright 

white elements of the image. Images from Lauren Purser, Banaszak Holl Lab (University of 

Michigan, NSF–REU). Recently collected data from currently unpublished work. 

Benthic Chironomid worms that live in the Lake Michigan sediment with the mussels also ingest the 200 nm and 2000 nm nanoplastics and at concentrations greater 

than those observed in the mussels (Figure 9). 

Figure 9. (A) Microscopy images of Lake Michigan Chironomid worms in tank with Quagga 

mussels exposed to fluorescent plastic spheres. Plastic particles are the bright white elements 

of the image. Images from Lauren Purser, Banaszak Holl Lab (University of Michigan, NSF– 

REU). Recently collected data from currently unpublished work. 

Chironomids, as well as Quagga mussels, are central to the Lake Michigan food 

web. They are consumed by all foraging fish that live in the lake (Figure 10)—and, 

in fact, most of the Great Lakes. Trophic transfer of consumer plastic has been confirmed.31 As such, owing to their resistance to degradation, nanoplastics consumed 

by these Great Lakes mussels and worms have the potential to move up the Great 

Lakes food web to the high value piscivorian fishes (‘‘fish-eating fishes’’), such as 

salmon, trout, bass, and walleye (Figure 10). 


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ehttps://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/projects/food_web/food_web.html fhttp://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fenvs.2017.00045/full#Note4 

Figure 10. Lake Michigan food web. Prepared by NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research 

Laboratory.e Note the yellow stars indicating the Quagga mussels and Chironomid worms highlighted in the research shared above. 

Other researchers have confirmed that ingesting plastic in place of food results in 

reduced biomass; plastic lacks nutrients for growth.7 Ingested plastic nanoparticles 

have led to changed foraging behavior and organ function in fish.32 It is yet to be 

confirmed what the effects of plastic consumption are on the population-level fitness 

of Great Lakes fishes. This work is needed to determine the economic and public 

health impacts of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes. 

III. Conclusion 

As the largest freshwater system on the planet, the Great Lakes hold 20 percent 

of the world’s surface freshwater. With this study, plastic pollution has now been 

documented down to the smallest size class reported to date. This led to the discovery of plastic concentrations up to 2 million particles per square kilometer, the 

highest reported levels in the Great Lakes and possibly any surface water ecosystem. 

These high numbers can be attributed to high nearshore population densities, a feature unique to inland waterways that does not similarly influence remote ocean basins, and the long hydraulic residence time of some of the Great Lakes (3–100s of 

years, depending on the lake). Given this time and the recalcitrance of plastic to 

degradation, fragments of some of the first plastic ever produced for the consumer 

market are certainly present in the Great Lakes still today. This scenario is likely 

representative of lakes worldwide, which account for 87 percent of the planet’s surface freshwater and have an average residence time of 50–100 yearsf

—indeed spanning the introduction of plastics to the consumer market. 

We know plastic is there in our critical freshwater. What is next? ‘‘Although we 

are all responsible for microplastics in the environment, getting the entire world to 

rethink the way it uses synthetic polymers would be a long, arduous process requiring compelling evidence of severe environmental risks (D. Sedlak,33 included with 

this report).’’ Critical to this process and the advancement of this research field are 

(1) the development of analytical techniques for high-throughput, accurate detection 

and quantification of micro- and nano-plastic, (2) development of hydrodynamic 

models to guide (3) targeted research surveys and experiments, to develop (4) a global plastic mass balance transport model (‘‘Where does it comes from? Where does it 

go?’’), (5) determination of food web impacts, and ultimately (6) the risk to humans. 


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These research outputs will define further the ecosystem and public health risks 

plastic pollution pose to our vital freshwater systems and inform the needed policy, 

mitigation, and prevention initiatives of the future. 

Works Cited 

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fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B 

Biol Sci 364, 1985–1998 (2009). 

2. Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., et al. Marine pollution. 

Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science 347, 768–771 (2015). 

3. PlasticsEurope: Association of Plastics Manufacturers Plastics-The Facts 2014/ 

2015. (2015). 

4. Boerger, C. M., Lattin, G. L., Moore, S. L. & Moore, C. J. Plastic ingestion by 

planktivorous fishes in the North Pacific Central Gyre. Mar Pollut Bull 60, 2275– 

2278 (2010). 

5. Foekema, E. M., De Gruijter, C., Mergia, M. T., van Franeker, J. A., et al. Plastic in north sea fish. Environ Sci Technol 47, 8818–8824 (2013). 

6. Besseling, E., Wegner, A., Foekema, E. M., Van Den Heuvel-Greve, M. J. & 

Koelmans, A. A. Effects of microplastic on fitness and PCB bioaccumulation by the 

lugworm Arenicola marina (L.). Environmental science & technology 47, 593–600 

(2012). 

7. Wright, S. L., Thompson, R. C. & Galloway, T. S. The physical impacts of 

microplastics on marine organisms: a review. Environ Pollut 178, 483–492 (2013). 

8. Rochman, C. M., Hoh, E., Kurobe, T. & Teh, S. J. Ingested plastic transfers 

hazardous chemicals to fish and induces hepatic stress. Sci Rep 3, 3263 (2013). 

9. Van Cauwenberghe, L. & Janssen, C. R. Microplastics in bivalves cultured for 

human consumption. Environ Pollut 193, 65–70 (2014). 

10. Rochman, C. M., Tahir, A., Williams, S. L., Baxa, D. V., et al. Anthropogenic 

debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold 

for human consumption. Sci Rep 5, 14340 (2015). 

11. UNEP Marine plastic debris and microplastics—Global lessons and research 

to inspire action and guide policy change. United Nations Environment Programme, 

Nairobi (2016). 

12. Rochman, C. M., Browne, M. A., Underwood, A. J., Franeker, J. A., et al. The 

ecological impacts of marine debris: unraveling the demonstrated evidence from 

what is perceived. Ecology 97, 302–312 (2016). 

13. GESAMP (IMO/FAO/UNESCO–IOC/UNIDO/WMO/IAEA/UN/UNEP Joint 

Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection) Proceedings of the GESAMP International Workshop on Microplastic particles as a vector in transporting persistent, bio-accumulating and toxic sub-stances in the ocean. 

GESAMP Reports and Studies 82, 1–68 (2010). 

14. Kummu, M., De Moel, H., Ward, P. J. & Varis, O. How close do we live to 

water? A global analysis of population distance to freshwater bodies. PLoS One 6, 

e20578 (2011). 

15. Cable, R., Beletsky, D., Beletsky, R., Locke, B. W., et al. Distribution and modeled transport of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, the worlds largest freshwater 

resource. Frontiers in Environmental Science 5, 40 (2017). 

16. Hankett, J. M., Collin, W. R., Yang, P., Chen, Z. & Duhaime, M. B. Low-volatility Model Demonstrates Humidity Affects Environmental Toxin Deposition on 

Plastics at a Molecular Level. Environ Sci & Technol 50, 1304–1312 (2016). 

17. Michielssen, M., Michielssen, E., Ni, J. & Duhaime, M. Fate of microplastics 

and other small anthropogenic litter (SAL) in wastewater treatment plants depends 

on unit processes employed. Environ Sci: Water Res Technol (2016). 

18. Eriksen, M., Mason, S., Wilson, S., Box, C., et al. Microplastic pollution in the 

surface waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Marine Pollution Bulletin 77, 177– 

182 (2013). 

19. Mason, S. A., Kammin, L., Eriksen, M., Aleid, G., et al. Pelagic plastic pollution within the surface waters of Lake Michigan, USA. Journal of Great Lakes Research 42, 753–759 (2016). 

20. Khatmullina, L. & Isachenko, I. Settling velocity of microplastic particles of 

regular shapes. Mar Pollut Bull (2016). 

21. Kowalski, N., Reichardt, A. M. & Waniek, J. J. Sinking rates of microplastics 

and potential implications of their alteration by physical, biological, and chemical 

factors. Mar Pollut Bull 109, 310–319 (2016). 

22. Wagner, M., Scherer, C., Alvarez-Mun ̃ oz, D., Brennholt, N., et al. Microplastics 

in freshwater ecosystems: what we know and what we need to know. Environmental 

Sciences Europe 26, 1–9 (2014). 

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23. Teuten, E. L., Saquing, J. M., Knappe, D. R., Barlaz, M. A., et al. Transport 

and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife. Philos 

Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364, 2027–2045 (2009). 

24. Syberg, K., Khan, F. R., Selck, H., Palmqvist, A., et al. Microplastics: addressing ecological risk through lessons learned. Environ Toxicol Chem 34, 945–953 

(2015). 

25. Baldwin, A. K., Corsi, S. R. & Mason, S. A. Plastic Debris in 29 Great Lakes 

Tributaries: Relations to Watershed Attributes and Hydrology. Environ Sci Technol 

50, 10377–10385 (2016). 

26. Dris, R., Imhof, H., Sanchez, W., Gasperi, J., et al. Beyond the ocean: contamination of freshwater ecosystems with (micro-) plastic particles. Environmental 

Chemistry 12, 539–550 (2015). 

27. IPCC Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate 

change adaptation (Cambridge University Press, 2012). 

28. Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 (USA). Available from: https:// 

www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1321/all-info. 

29. Oehlmann, J., Schulte-Oehlmann, U., Kloas, W., Jagnytsch, O., et al. A critical 

analysis of the biological impacts of plasticizers on wildlife. Philos Trans R Soc Lond 

B Biol Sci 364, 2047–2062 (2009). [NO STYLE for: Hornbuckle 2006]. 

31. Seta ̈la ̈, O., Fleming-Lehtinen, V. & Lehtiniemi, M. Ingestion and transfer of 

microplastics in the planktonic food web. Environ Pollut 185, 77–83 (2014). 

32. Mattsson, K., Ekvall, M. T., Hansson, L. -A., Linse, S., et al. Altered Behavior, 

Physiology, and Metabolism in Fish Exposed to Polystyrene Nanoparticles. Environ 

Sci Technol 49, 553–561 (2015). 

33. Sedlak, D. Three Lessons for the Microplastics Voyage. Environ Sci Technol 

51, 7747–7748 (2017). 

ADDENDUM 1: Recent editorial on ‘‘lessons learned from plastic reearch’’ by 

David Sedlak, Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Science and Technology, the premier environmental science journal with focus on emerging contaminants of concern. 

Sedlak, D. Three Lessons for the Microplastics Voyage. Environ Sci Technol 51, 

7747–7748 (2017). 

ADDENDUM 2: Publication from University of Michigan that culminated from 

the bulk of the results discussed in above report. Cable, R., Beletsky, D., Beletsky, 

R., Locke, B. W., et al. Distribution and modeled transport of plastic pollution in 

the Great Lakes, the worlds largest freshwater resource. Frontiers in Environmental 

Science 5, 40 (2017). 

ADDENDUM 1 

Environmental Science & Technology—Published: July 10, 2017 

THREE LESSONS FOR THE MICROPLASTICS VOYAGE

Whether it is DDT, perchlorate, perfluoroalkyl substances, or pharmaceuticals, 

the process through which a contaminant emerges follows a predictable pattern. 

First, researchers stumble upon a previously unknown contaminant or observe effects on the health of humans or wildlife that they cannot readily explain. Driven 

by curiosity and a desire to protect the environment, the researchers, operating on 

a shoestring budget, publish a paper documenting their initial findings. The attention that their research receives results in a wave of papers on detection, occurrence 

and toxicology of a now-emerging contaminant. 

About a decade after the first wave of papers appears the emerging contaminant 

reaches a crossroads. If the research does not seem to justify action, the funding tide 

ebbs and the community moves onto other issues. But if there is sufficient ground 

for concern, a second wave of research starts, with an expansion into policy-relevant 

questions related to establishing regulatory standards, implementing treatment 

technologies, and reformulating products to minimize future releases. 

Microplastics are our newest emerging contaminant. Although scientists have expressed concerns about the impacts of plastic pollution for over four decades, microplastics did not become emerging contaminants until 2007. The issue gained momentum about five years later, when researchers reported the presence of microbeads 

from consumer products in wastewater effluent-receiving waters. Facing negative 

publicity for a nonessential ingredient, leading manufacturers voluntarily eliminated microbeads and accepted the decision to ban them in the United States in 

2015. Now that we are into the second wave of research that will determine whether 

or not the remaining sources of microplastics will be controlled, it is worth considering lessons learned from other emerging contaminants. 

46 

The first lesson is that occurrence data and laboratory toxicology studies alone are 

not enough to bring about action when the effects being studied do not involve humans. When it comes to wildlife, adverse effects must be documented in the field. 

In the case of DDT, the direct link between tissue levels and reproductive failure 

of bald eagles and brown pelicans turned the tide on a product that was considered 

essential to farmers. In contrast, the widespread occurrence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and perfluoroalkyl substances in polar bears garnered plenty 

of media attention, but without field evidence of adverse effects, regulatory actions 

were hard to justify. For microplastics, the public might not be as motivated if the 

adverse effects are limited to decreased feeding by microscopic creatures living near 

the bottom of the food web. Furthermore, waterways with the highest concentrations of microplastics are also subject to other pollutant stresses that could make 

it difficult to attribute compromised wildlife health to microplastics. To prove adverse effects of microplastics under realistic conditions, dosing of entire lakes, using 

methods similar than those used to document the effects of ethinyl estradiol on fish 

populations, might be needed. Because the addition of microplastics to pristine 

ocean waters would be impractical, such large-scale manipulations would require researchers to devise clever ways of removing microplastics from already contaminated marine waters. 

Turning our attention to people, the second lesson is that contaminants are more 

likely to emerge if there is a reasonable possibility that their use is endangering 

human health. For example, when PBDEs were reported in human serum and 

breast milk, regulators took action before health effects were documented. As long 

as we consider human health as our top environmental priority, occurrence data and 

toxicology studies suggesting that contaminant concentrations are approaching a 

level of concern can bring about action. In the case of microplastics, human health 

risks have been posited, but the complexities associated with microplastic uptake as 

well as the simultaneous exposure of people to a myriad of other particles are going 

to challenge researchers seeking to assess the health risks of microplastics. Furthermore, one of the human health concerns that is frequently discussed—namely that 

microplastics expose people to lipophilic chemicals—is likely to be seen as an issue 

that is best handled by controlling the lipophilic chemicals rather than the media 

that increase their uptake. 

The third lesson is that the likelihood that society will control an emerging contaminant is inversely proportional to the cost of solving the problem as well as the 

degree to which blame can be affixed on a small number of companies. The first 

part of this lesson is intuitive: expensive regulatory action requires a high threshold 

of evidence. Replacing microbeads in facial scrubs is a lot easier than rethinking the 

thousands of uses of plastics in the economy. The second part is less obvious but 

just as relevant: product bans and requirements to clean up contamination are more 

likely when only a few companies manufacture and use the chemical. For example, 

Monsanto, Westinghouse, and General Electric spent over $10 billion cleaning up 

PCB-contaminated sites. In contrast, the hundreds of companies that mine and use 

copper in construction materials, electronics and brake pads have not funded upgrades to sewage treatment plants or the installation of stormwater treatment systems in places where waterways are contaminated with the metal. 

If it turns out that a specific use of plastic accounts for a disproportionate share 

of the microplastics detected in the environment, action is more likely. As long as 

researchers focus on a suite of sources that would be nearly impossible to eliminate, 

control options implemented in the near term are likely to be restricted to relatively 

inexpensive practices (e.g., litter control campaigns, marketing of biodegradable 

plastics to eco-friendly consumers) that might ultimately have little impact. Although we are all responsible for microplastics in the environment, getting the entire world to rethink the way it uses synthetic polymers would be a long, arduous 

process requiring compelling evidence of severe environmental risks. 

The science and engineering of microplastics will be different from that of the 

chemical contaminants that preceded them. Nevertheless, we should learn our 

emerging contaminant history lessons. As we embark on our second decade of microplastics research, we need to set our sights on how best to provide society with the 

information needed to decide what to do about our newest emerging contaminant. 

DAVID SEDLAK, 

Editor-in-Chief. 

Notes 

Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the 

views of the ACS. The author declares no competing financial interest. 

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Senator SULLIVAN. Thank you for that testimony. 

We are now joined by a very distinguished witness, Senator 

Whitehouse, who has been a leader on this issue, and I am very, 

very pleased that he has joined us today to testify on an issue that 

he has not only led on in the Senate, but is very passionate about. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM RHODE ISLAND 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Intermittently distinguished, Chairman 

Sullivan, intermittently. But thank you to you and Senator Peters. 

I really appreciate this opportunity. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Just so you know, we’ve probably had about 

eight or nine senators at this hearing already, so there’s a lot of 

interest. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Well, there should be, because this is a 

very important issue. One of the things that we are learning, as 

you know, is that billions of tons of plastic is going into the oceans. 

We did a hearing together in the Environment and Public Works 

Committee, in which the testimony was that a great deal of that 

was going into the Pacific, and your Aleutian Islands reach up like 

an arm across the top of the Pacific and catch an enormous amount 

of that waste along your shores. I believe that the comparison was 

that in Rhode Island, we do annual beach cleanup with garbage 

bags and you have to do it with front-end loaders and containers 

at a whole level of scale with tons per linear mile of ocean front 

in some places. 

So it’s really serious, and what we have learned through the good 

work of Ocean Conservancy and a scientist, I believe, at the University of Georgia named Jenna Jamison, is that the biggest contributor to that problem is a handful of Asian nations that have 

horrible upland waste management, and because plastic lasts so 

long, if you have terrible upland waste management, sooner or 

later, things work their way to the sea, and then off you go to the 

races, and then you end up with these billions and billions. 

So one of the things that we’re recommending in the legislation 

that you have led on is that our trade representatives start to pay 

attention to this fact. If it’s hitting home in Alaska, if it’s hitting 

home around the world, we should not be paying zero attention, 

which is the record so far, to this problem of treating a trading 

partner of ours as if it’s totally okay to have zero upland waste disposal, give them competitive advantage because they don’t have to 

pay for waste disposal, and we pick up half of their tab through 

the trash that we then have to clean up. 

The second piece of this that I’ll mention in my remarks today 

is that the stuff goes out there, and we are headed for a world in 

which there’s actually more plastic waste mass in the ocean than 

there is living fish mass in the ocean. That’s not a great place. 

But the plastic doesn’t biodegrade in the ocean. It breaks down 

into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller pieces to the 

point where those little pieces can be taken up by little phytoplankton, and little creatures in the food chain, whatever is eating down 

there, gets these little things in them, and then they start working 

their way back up the food chain. And we have no idea what effect 

66 

that has on human consumption of fish and on people who have 

fish, like many Alaskans do, as a big part of their diet. So we need 

to study that. 

And we need to put to work our national labs and our universities to try to figure out how to make a plastic that when you 

leave it in the ocean, it actually biodegrades back to core elements 

and reintegrates into the natural world instead of just making 

smaller and smaller and smaller plastic pieces. 

This is a great issue for us to work together on in a bipartisan 

fashion. It was your leadership that caused the hearing to be held 

in the Environment and Public Works Committee. It’s your leadership that has caused this hearing to be held today. I stand with 

you, ready to help in any way. 

I hope that if we can get through our current standoff on 

healthcare and go back to more regular order, that our bill becomes 

something that can move rapidly through the hotline. There’s an 

equivalent bill in the House, so there’s a real opportunity here for 

bipartisan progress. But it would not be possible without your leadership, and Senator Peters is also an original co-sponsor as well as 

a co-leader of our Oceans Caucus, which has been very successful 

in moving this forward. 

So with all of that, let me express my appreciation to you both. 

Let me express my appreciation to the Committee for allowing me 

to come and testify and show my support and ring out with the 

message that this is important. This is something that our children 

and grandchildren will be looking at us to say, ‘‘Why did you or 

didn’t you do something about this?’’ And this is a real bipartisan 

opportunity. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, thank you very much, and I think you’re 

being a little humble here, because I appreciate the comments 

about the leadership. But just for the record, the driving force on 

this, where I’ve learned a lot about this issue, not just from my 

constituents, but from Senator Whitehouse. So it is true bipartisan 

effort and consideration with Senator Peters. Senator Booker, who 

was here earlier, gave a very impassioned testimony and plea. So 

I think this is something—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And, of course, your senior senator, Senator Murkowski, was the original co-founder of the Oceans Caucus 

and has been a part of this all along as well. So a big Alaska footprint on this, but primarily yours, and I appreciate it. The gavels 

matter, and you’ve used yours to great effect. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Well, and one thing that we mentioned earlier—this has passed out of committee, in the Commerce Committee, already, bipartisan, and I believe we are beginning the hotline process, and so, hopefully, we can move that soon. But thank 

you again for your testimony. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you for the invitation. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Professor Duhaime, we have a couple of follow-up questions. Thank you for your patience. Let me just go to 

kind of two issues that Senator Whitehouse talked about that has 

really been a theme here. But you’re really kind of very well positioned, given your background and your research, to help us understand these issues better. 

67 

The bottom line is we really don’t know what the impact and 

health effects are right now with regard to the micro plastics to the 

health of fish or even the impact for humans, correct? 

Dr. DUHAIME. That is true. One of the notes that I wrote down 

earlier that I heard repeatedly was the quote, ‘‘we don’t know.’’ 

Senator SULLIVAN. Yes. Well, again, we appreciate your professional work and your research and want to encourage you to do 

that so we do know. But let me get to another question that he 

raised that I think is also—we can view as an opportunity and a 

challenge. 

I mentioned—and I just submitted for the record—the statement 

by the American Chemical Council. Senator Peters and I were talking about this before the hearing. Are we getting close, in your 

view, from the perspective of research and what’s going on in industry or academia, with regard to having at least, for example, 

salt water, a true biodegradable plastic? It would seem to me that 

would be very, very good for the environment and our oceans, and 

it would also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs who could ever 

figure out a way to do that to benefit as well, a win-win. 

But do you believe that we’re getting there? Because that could 

be very helpful. We’re not there yet. 

Dr. DUHAIME. Unfortunately, I do have to admit I’m not a chemist and an expert in the realm of material sciences. So I think you’d 

be better suited to direct that question at someone with that expertise. 

Senator SULLIVAN. OK, because I do think we’re seeing that in 

terms of even Styrofoam and other areas that we could have the 

potential for a full biodegradable product that could help, and, 

again, that’s another area that we’re going to be focused on. 

Let me ask you a final question. You know, there has been talk 

about the Great Lakes. There has been talk about the oceans. Does 

marine debris that reaches freshwater pose a different threat, different challenge, different way that we should think about it from 

a policy perspective, than marine debris found in our oceans? Or 

is it pretty much broadly viewed as the same direct challenge? 

Dr. DUHAIME. I think there are a few differences in how the plastic behaves in the environment influenced by the freshwater, which 

will influence its distribution in the water column. But I think 

more from a policy and human impact perspective, one thing that 

we do need to think about differently is that freshwater is drinking 

water sources, so having a closer look at the impact on freshwater 

as a drinking water source and serving as a mechanism to deliver 

plastics to our bodies. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Are there any immediate steps our state or 

Federal agencies could take, in addition to what’s in this bill, which 

is focused in a lot of ways on the oceans, to combat marine debris 

in the Great Lakes region? 

Dr. DUHAIME. I think a lot of the efforts and initiatives are quite 

transferable to the Great Lakes. 

Senator SULLIVAN. OK. Great. 

Dr. DUHAIME. So I don’t know any other specific recommendations that would be targeted at the Great Lakes. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Great. 

Senator Peters. 

68 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Dr. Duhaime, for being here and thank you for 

all the work that you’re doing on the Great Lakes. We spent a lot 

of time during this hearing discussing the oceans, which are vitally 

important to the planet’s health, but as the Senator from Michigan, 

I’m very concerned about the health of our state as well as the 

other states around the Great Lakes basin. 

You mentioned in response to a question from Chairman Sullivan 

regarding human health issues, or differences perhaps in freshwater versus oceans, and you brought up the issue of drinking 

water. I think it’s very important, and one thing that I remind my 

colleagues about frequently here is that the Great Lakes provide 

drinking water to over 40 million Americans—a pretty significant 

source of water. 

When I hear about your study—and I’d like you to elaborate on 

your study of the amount of plastic that you’re finding in the Great 

Lakes, particularly microfibers. This is obviously being ingested by 

human beings, 40 million who are drinking out of the Great Lakes. 

To what extent do treatment plants deal with this pollution when 

we’re drinking that water? Are we effective in doing that? Is that 

a major concern that we have to consider? 

Dr. DUHAIME. I personally don’t have experience monitoring or 

evaluating drinking water treatment. I have been into multiple 

waste water treatment plants to monitor the processing through 

those types of treatment plants, and then what is output to the 

natural system. But I think one thing that does need to be done 

is looking at the source of drinking water and seeing what does 

pass through and how treatment systems are treating it. 

Senator PETERS. So at least from your background, there has not 

been a lot of research into that area at this point? 

Dr. DUHAIME. Not of drinking water. 

Senator PETERS. So this is—we know that microfibers and other 

types of plastics are very extensive in the Great Lakes. In fact, if 

I recall from the testimony you just gave, you saw some of the 

highest levels ever. Would you elaborate on that, please? 

Dr. DUHAIME. Yes, that is true. I also believe that is a difference 

that you will see emerging when we start comparing counts and 

concentrations from marine systems to the Great Lakes. As you 

mentioned in your opening remarks, there is something to the dilution effect, and when you consider the concentration of humans living around coastlines, for instance, the Great Lakes, and the 

amount of water that’s there, it is much more concentrated, and so 

that gives rise to the opportunity for greater incidence of encounter 

with humans with organisms living in the water. 

Senator PETERS. What was the figure you gave for the Detroit 

River? 

Dr. DUHAIME. That was 2 million particles per square kilometer—was the value there that we counted. 

Senator PETERS. And how did you compare that to the normal? 

You said that was the highest concentration that you’ve—— 

Dr. DUHAIME. Yes. So prior in the Great Lakes, it was—half a 

million was the greatest value before our study was performed, and 

that was in the Eastern Basin of Lake Erie, so generally less close 

69 

to the coast, and I think that could have been influencing our high 

concentrations in the Detroit River. 

Senator PETERS. So that’s why you think there’s a difference in 

the findings from previous findings of researchers in the Great 

Lakes? 

Dr. DUHAIME. Yes. I think one of the reasons why our study was 

enlightening was the greater number of studies. So for more statistically robust counts, you need more sample points and greater 

samples. That actually gets you another bottleneck in this type of 

research, and the quality of the data, the reliability of the data 

that comes out of it is that—I think one of the problems right now 

is the—the best I can refer to it is that we’re using cave man approaches to plastic quantification, that we really need improved analytical approaches to bring the data collection where it should be 

in the 21st century, so really harnessing the applied chemistry and 

physics that we know is out there. 

Right now, what we do is we go out, we pick up plastic, and we 

count it, and that’s usually with a plastic nylon mesh net which— 

you mentioned previously that fibers are an emerging issue, which 

is very much the case, and we see them enmeshed in the tissues 

of organisms in the Great Lakes or in that digestive tract. But how 

can we reliably count fibers with a nylon mesh net? 

So there are certainly advancements in our ability to collect that 

raw data, those count data, that could be improved. But why are 

we simply picking things up and counting them with our eyes? It’s 

because these are the only techniques that are available to us. 

They’re inexpensive. But we can and should, with funds provided, 

improve the analytical capacity to collect data. 

Senator PETERS. In the response to the question from Chairman 

Sullivan about the differences between freshwater in the Great 

Lakes and the oceans, you mentioned, of course, drinking water, 

which you elaborated on with my question. But you also mentioned 

that the distributions are different. Would you please elaborate on 

that? 

Dr. DUHAIME. Distributions of different plastics? 

Senator PETERS. Correct, that it’s different in the Great Lakes, 

and the movement is different than what you may find in the 

oceans, and why that should be a concern to us? 

Dr. DUHAIME. Yes. So those differences stem from really the 

physical properties of water and salt versus freshwater. So the 

lower salinity means that the plastic that would normally float on 

the surface of the ocean will find a different place to settle or find 

its neutral position in the water column. So things that float in the 

oceans could presumably sink in freshwater, and our models have 

confirmed that floating plastic leaves the lakes faster than nonfloating plastic. So that in a closed or more relatively closed system 

like the Great Lakes could lead to a higher concentration, a higher 

residence time of plastics in the lakes. 

Senator PETERS. Well, given your extensive study—just one final 

question, Mr. Chairman—what do you believe are the next research steps that we need to take to improve our understanding of 

the Great Lakes and the debris problem that’s there? 

Dr. DUHAIME. So as has come up several times in the second 

panel, the studies of organismal impacts of ingestion and inhalaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
70 

tion, including humans, is of utmost priority. Also, updating the 

standards for measuring risks are, I think, an important element 

that deserves some discussion, that are more appropriate for the 

properties of plastic. So in our kind of regiment, there are mechanisms to evaluate risk, environmental risk, put forth by agencies 

such as the EPA. Currently, they’re not well suited to describe and 

define the risk incurred due to plastic. 

As I mentioned, improved analytical techniques are essential to 

bring our data collection to where it should be, as well as improved 

modeling of plastic transport. So in the absence of high throughput, 

highly accurate data collection, an alternative mechanism to give 

us information about where plastic is going, which habitats are 

most at risk, could be employing hydrodynamic models to predict 

where it will go and how quickly, as well as—this is outside of my 

expertise—but economic and health and societal impacts, and more 

the study of the societal impact of plastic pollution, its cleanup, and 

its prevention, I think, are needed to help define incentives for 

change. 

Senator PETERS. Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your testimony 

today. Thank you. 

Senator SULLIVAN. Professor Duhaime, thank you again for your 

testimony, and we very much appreciate the work you’re doing. We 

want to encourage you to keep it up and continue to help us have 

a better understanding. But you did a very good job of that today. 

So without any further questions, this hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(71) 

A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE U.S. COAST GUARD

Introduction 

Marine debris is a risk not only to the coastal and offshore environment, but also 

poses a hazard to navigation As the lead Federal regulator for the maritime industry, the Coast Guard actively partners with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA), the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service (USFWS), and other members of the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Council (IMDCC) to ensure safe navigation and protect the marine environment. 

Interagency Coordination for Marine Debris 

NOAA is the lead agency for conducting research, monitoring, prevention, and reduction activities for marine debris. NOAA’s Marine Debris Program leads this effort and NOAA chairs the Interagency Marine Debris Coordinating Committee 

(IMDCC). The Coast Guard supports NOAA by participating as a member of the 

IMDCC. 

The Marine Debris Research, Prevention and Reduction Act of 2006 identifies the 

Coast Guard as an agency that NOAA should coordinate with to address marine debris issues. To date, the Coast Guard has been fully engaged with NOAA in support 

of marine debris monitoring and tracking in order to ensure safe navigation for 

shipping and to protect the marine environment. Coast Guard actions in support of 

NOAA depend on the type of the debris. 

The Coast Guard, as the Federal On Scene Coordinator (FOSC) for the Coastal 

Zone, leads removal actions under the National Contingency Plan (NCP) for any debris that poses a potential oil or hazardous substance threat to the environment. 

Additionally, the Coast Guard coordinates with USACE to ensure our waterways 

are free of any hazards to navigation. Upon report of an obstruction to navigation 

in U.S. navigable waters, the Coast Guard and USACE work together to develop 

a removal or mitigation strategy. If the hazard to navigation is within a federally 

maintained shipping channel, the USACE will typically take action to remove it. If 

the hazard to navigation is not within a federally maintained channel, the Coast 

Guard may, among other things, choose to mark the hazard with a buoy and broadcast warnings to mariners. 

Critical to the Coast Guard’s decision making process is the exact nature of the 

risk posed by the object to safe navigation. USACE and Coast Guard decision-makers ensure close coordination with state and local authorities and, in some cases, 

those non-federal authorities may choose to remove the object. Coast Guard resources and personnel may also be requested by NOAA to help with identifying, 

tracking, and monitoring debris by conducting overflights, with NOAA representatives aboard. In addition, Coast Guard resources and personnel partner with NOAA 

to help with documentation of, and response to, marine animals entangled in marine 

debris (e.g., marine mammals and sea turtles). 

The Coast Guard and NOAA actively work and plan together at all levels of both 

agencies. At the national level, the Coast Guard participates in interagency conference calls, hosted by NOAA, to provide strategic interagency coordination, awareness, and information sharing. At the regional and local level, operational commanders at the Areas and Districts are actively engaged with other federal, state, 

local, and tribal partners. Further, the Coast Guard coordinates outreach and education on marine debris prevention through its Sea Partners program and the Coast 

Guard Auxiliary and has partnered with NOAA through the IMDCC on outreach 

efforts on the prevention of waste (e.g., garbage and plastics) generated by recreational vessels. 

Pollution Prevention Operations 

While debris removal is an important part of safeguarding the environment and 

the MTS, the Coast Guard plays an important role in preventing marine debris from 

72 

entering our waterways and oceans. The Coast Guard leads this effort through examinations of foreign vessels for compliance with the International Convention for 

the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) Annex V. Coast Guard marine 

inspectors also verify that domestic vessels comply with the Act to Prevent Pollution 

from Ship (APPS), and the regulations associated with that U.S. law. The Coast 

Guard also plays a critical role in verifying that port facilities meet their legal requirements in accepting garbage and refuse from vessels calling on U.S. ports. This 

is a critical component in combating marine debris. Vessels must be able to offload 

their garbage when in port, so that they will not be tempted to dispose of it at sea. 

Conclusion 

The Coast Guard will continue to work closely with NOAA and through the 

IMDCC to address the potential impacts of marine debris and will respond to substantial pollution threats or hazards to navigation. 

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY HON. GARY PETERS TO

MELISSA B. DUHAIME, PH.D. 

Solutions for Debris 

Question 1. Dr. Duhaime, you described in your written testimony a host of impacts to the environment and human health and safety. We know plastic is a big 

part of the problem along with abandon and derelict fishing gear and vessels and 

other items. 

What are some potential solutions for debris in the Great Lakes and might there 

be different solutions in the oceans? 

Answer. The solution to the plastic debris crisis in the Great Lakes and in the 

oceans is universal; all components of the plastic pollution equation must be addressed. 

Plastic pollution is a function of the plastic produced (which itself is a function 

of the plastic demand and supply of raw materials—feedstock) in combination with 

the extent of plastic waste management. There are four major dependent or interacting elements: plastic production, demand, feedstock supply, and waste management. Solutions in the Great Lakes and oceans alike must address all four. 

First, we must address production. For a realized reduction of plastic produce, one 

must first ask ‘‘which sector can we reduce, so as not to decimate the plastic industry nor eliminate the production of plastics beneficial to society?’’ It is the production and use of disposable one-time-use plastics that must be curbed, especially for 

food packaging (one of the strongest plastic markets), rather than continue to rise. 

This argument is focused there. There is a systemic cultural addiction to the convenience of one-time-use plastic, yet plastic pollution is putting our ecosystem at risk.1

The full consequences of this risk are currently unknown, but the outcome has the 

potential to be dire for humans and the environment, alike. We know plastic is 

found in the food we eat,2,3 but less discussed is that it also exists in the air we 

breathe.4 And not without risk: a decades old study confirmed that 97 percent of 

the malignant lung tumor specimens examined contained cellulosic and plastic fibers.5 Shifts in production to secondary, recycled products or more biodegradable 

plastics are considered below. 

Next, we consider demand and feedstock supply. There is money in plastics. We 

can’t expect the demand for plastics to decrease on its own, especially if crude oil 

and natural gas-derived feedstock is not limiting. Nor with the good will of a handful of eco-minded first-world consumers decrease global demand. It may require policy to incentivize reduced production of one-time use disposable plastics or to shift 

the supply of primary plastic feedstock, be they derived from crude oil refining, natural gas processing, or biological material. Interestingly, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is unable to determine the specific amounts of each feedstock 

that go into plastic production, so the feasibility of a detailed evaluation of these 

markets is limited. Though I can highlight possible avenues to explore, the economics of the above suggestions are beyond my scope of expertise, yet their consideration is motivated by the ecosystem and human health risks of plastic pollution, to 

which I have spoken. 

Finally, in considering waste management, I address two major areas where the 

search for solutions can be focused: effectiveness of recycling initiatives and the development of biodegradable plastic (in the next section). Recycling in its current 

form is an insufficient solution to prevent plastic pollution. 

First, in discussions of waste management across the state of Michigan, other 

Great Lakes states, and Canada, it has become clear that recycling programs in the 

U.S. that are managed on a local scale simply do not work. For instance, even in 

73 

the progressive Midwestern City of Ann Arbor, where most residents value and intend to recycle, the market for recycled materials is so volatile that it has been prohibitively risky to invest in management of recyclables. Economic buffers are needed 

to support the efforts of (especially small) municipalities to create and maintain recycling programs in the face of market volatility. 

Second, incentives for manufacturers to use recycled materials are needed, as well 

as for which secondary items are produced from recycled plastic. These items must 

have a large potential for displacement—the successful market competition with primary, non-recycled plastics.6 For, it is not the amount of material collected for recycling that matters for reducing environmental impact, but the amount of primary 

plastic that is displaced on the market.7 These items must be of great and sustained 

technical and economic value for maximal displacement,6 thereby avoiding 

downcycling, where the product’s value decreases after being broken down into its 

constituent parts due to poor quality recycled material. Representing the current 

standard for reporting practices and foci, the Plastics Division of the American 

Chemistry Council represents and reports on activities of the leading manufacturers 

of plastic resins. This group often presents data lauding the increase in plastic recycling in recent years. However, these data do not account for the exponential increase in plastic production with time (if they did, recycling rates may flat line, or 

even decrease with time) and they tend to focus on the amount of material collected. 

In the future, maximally useful and productive assessments of the robustness and 

impacts of recycling systems must include the rate of primary plastic displacement 

and the market value of recycled items as they cycle through the economy. These 

are the reports policy makers should seek when considering effectiveness and 

robustness of recycling systems. 

Third, data shows that the majority of consumers are confused by plastic recycling 

programs.8 This also reduces the chance for success of introducing easy-to-degrade/ 

ocean-degradable (as mentioned in the oral testimony) plastics. With more diverse 

plastic landscape, including knowledge of environmentally ‘‘safe’’ plastics on the 

market, consumers may be granted unintentionally the license to mismanage all 

plastic. 

Innovations to Reduce Debris 

Question 2. Innovation, technology, and discoveries have helped to mitigate environmental problems in the past. Advancements have created some biodegradable 

plastics, but we understand that there are issues with biodegradable plastics actually degrading, especially in marine environments. 

Can you clarify what potential might exist to create biodegradable materials or 

more easily recycled materials to help mitigate this problem? 

Answer. Current chemistries of biodegradable plastics are intended to degrade in 

compost environments: warm habitats with minimal oxygen that are laden with 

microorganisms that specialize in the breakdown of complex carbon—such as the 

material found in soil, but which also includes plastic. 

Until we are able to reduce and eliminate the demand for one-time use plastics, 

one effective shift could be from petroleum-based plastics to biologically produced 

plastics (‘‘bio-plastics’’). For instance, PHA plastics (polyhydroxy-alkanoates) and 

other ‘‘compostable’’ plastic can be produced from plant material, such as corn, potato, and soybeans (though note, compostable plastic can also be produced from petroleum-based resins). The biodegradation of bio-plastics is more rapid than petroleum-based plastic, especially when conditions are optimal. Optimal conditions include fully contained compost or a healthy, functional landfill operation with abundant airflow. 

However, when not optimal (especially when oxygen becomes limiting), the degradation products of these bio-plastics (and even the ‘‘compostable’’ petroleum-based 

plastics) can be detrimental to the planet, potentially more so than the accumulation of persistent petro-plastics. 

If easy to degrade and compostable bio- and petro-plastics inundate our landfills 

(as they will under current waste management practices), the rate of methane production by landfills will increase. In the US, landfills are already the third largest 

source of methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more detrimental to our atmosphere 

than carbon dioxide. Though, when managed properly, there are many innovative 

possibilities for such easy-to-degrade and compostable plastics. For instance, if completely harnessed in a plastic-specific bioreactor, methane can be used as an energy 

source rather than being released to the atmosphere and continuing to contribute 

to current global warming. Further, informed by the knowledge delivered by environmental bioprospecting (more in next section), these plastic-specific bioreactors 

can be intentionally seeded with microorganisms able to degrade such plastic. This 

concept is similar to how wastewater treatment plants are engineered with orgaVerDate Nov 24 2008 10:27 Jun 05, 2018 Jkt 075679 PO 00000 Frm 00077 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 S:\GPO\DOCS\29978.TXT JACKIE
74 

nisms to scavenge phosphorus to prevent environmental phosphorus pollution. Such 

investments in waste management infrastructure innovation are requisite. The time 

is ripe for their development and installation, as most waste management infrastructure in the U.S. is aging and in need of replacement. 

In summary, there is potential for innovative design of new plastics, for instance 

compostable (already on the market) and other easy to degrade (e.g., in ocean or 

freshwater environments) resins. However, the shift towards easy to degrade/ 

compostable resins for one-time use plastics must be met with a transition to innovative waste management infrastructure (e.g., bioreactors, plastic-specific or not). 

Otherwise, the risk to planetary health due to enhanced atmospheric methane could 

be incurred. 

Research in Action 

Question 3. Dr. Duhaime, in your written testimony, you describe your data and 

research contributing to action plans, educating the public, and recommendations 

for addressing the problem of debris in the Great Lakes. 

Can you elaborate on the ways in which your research is contributing to developing solutions to this important environmental issue? 

Answer. As a lab focused on environmental microbiology, our current work is focused on the microscopic life forms that live on plastic debris (in both the Great 

Lakes and ocean systems). As little is known about these organisms, our first task 

is always to identify which microbes are there and how they differ from the native 

water communities. For instance, from these data types (essentially, species lists) 

we have been able to identify the core species that are typically found on plastic 

in the oceans and lakes. These plastic-dwelling microbes are candidates to explore 

for the potential to degrade the polymers. The next level of investigation (beyond 

the ‘‘species list’’) requires the reconstruction of the genomes and metabolic pathways of these microbes, an analysis currently active in our lab. These data will indicate whether plastic-dwelling microbes encode metabolic pathways with the potential for polymer degradation. In this way, we are bioprospecting new microbes and 

metabolisms that may be able to breakdown plastic. 

Notably, these approaches have also identified potential pathogens living on plastic. Our current data will confirm whether these pathogenic strains indeed exist on 

plastic and carry the genes needed for pathogenicity. 

We have been working in partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris Program for 

4 years. This group continues to serve as a critical and effective platform for researchers to disseminate their findings to outreach, education, and clean-up organizations, as well as to hear from these groups to learn the on-the-ground research 

questions and needs. This system works. Its funding is critical. 

As far as recommendations, we need greater industry partnership with the basic 

research of academia. For instance, with our expertise in prospecting and harnessing microbial diversity and metabolisms, we could work with plastics producers 

to more specifically define the microbial drivers and by-products of biodegradation 

to design next generation plastics with safe breakdown products. Such industry-academic unions are where the real potential for innovative change is possible. 

Research for Solutions 

Question 4. Dr. Duhaime, in your written testimony, you shared with us some of 

the modeling work that you and your collaborators have done to show how debris 

and its movement in the Great Lakes can change over time. 

Are there ways that we can use the information that you have learned through 

your research to improve the effectiveness of our debris prevention and debris cleanup efforts? 

Answer. Note this response mentions the Great Lakes, but can be applied to ocean 

systems as well. 

Our research, and that of other researchers in the Great Lakes, has quantified 

the abundance of plastic across the Great Lakes and its tributaries 9-12 and modeled 

(in other words, combined math and physics to predict) the distribution and movement of plastic through the lake.12,13 This knowledge can be applied to minimize the 

ecosystem risks incurred by increasing the effectiveness or debris prevention and 

clean-up efforts. By helping to identify patterns in the distribution and movement 

of plastic, we can better (1) identify sources of plastic, (2) determine whether some 

biomes are more at risk than others, e.g., breeding grounds or larval nurseries of 

economically important fish populations or endangered and threatened species, and 

(3) strategically focus clean-up efforts on habitats that are most impacted. 

75 

Differences with prior research 

Question 5. Dr. Duhaime, the extensive work you did in 2014 has found plastic 

concentrations much higher than previous studies and found that most of the plastics in the Great Lakes are broken down, or ‘‘secondary,’’ plastic fragments. 

What might have contributed to the different findings between your work and earlier work? Did the extensiveness of your sampling contribute to the observed differences? Is the nature of debris in the Great Lakes changing over time? 

Answer. Previous surveys of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes were performed 

only 1–4 years prior to ours.10,11 We do not expect these differences to have arisen 

due to a change in plastic over such a small window of time. 

We attribute the differences to be due primarily to two differences between the 

studies. The first difference is that we collected and counted plastic down to 100 μm, 

while the smaller size examined in previous reports was three times larger.10,11 All 

plastic in the environment will fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, thus one 

would predict the smallest size classes to have the most plastic. We found this to 

be the case in the Great Lakes. 

The second reason we found such higher counts was due to where we sampled. 

In addition to sampling the middle of Lake Erie’s western, central and eastern basins, we strategically sampled the coastline around high population density urban 

centers (Lake St. Clair, Detroit River, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo). These sites were 

found to contain the highest numbers of plastic. The previous study in Lake Erie 

restricted their sampling to the middle of the lake.10

Works Cited 

1. Rochman, C. M., Browne, M. A., Underwood, A. J., Franeker, J. A., et al. The 

ecological impacts of marine debris: unraveling the demonstrated evidence from 

what is perceived. Ecology 97, 302–312 (2016). 

2. Van Cauwenberghe, L. & Janssen, C. R. Microplastics in bivalves cultured for 

human consumption. Environ Pollut 193, 65–70 (2014). 

3. Rochman, C. M., Tahir, A., Williams, S. L., Baxa, D. V., et al. Anthropogenic 

debris in seafood: Plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold 

for human consumption. Sci Rep 5, 14340 (2015). 

4. Dris, R., Gasperi, J., Saad, M., Mirande, C. & Tassin, B. Synthetic fibers in 

atmospheric fallout: A source of microplastics in the environment? Mar Pollut Bull 

104, 290–293 (2016). 

5. Pauly, J. L., Stegmeier, S. J., Allaart, H. A., Cheney, R. T., et al. Inhaled cellulosic and plastic fibers found in human lung tissue. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers 

Prev 7, 419–428 (1998). 

6. Geyer, R., Kuczenski, B., Zink, T. & Henderson, A. Common Misconceptions 

about Recycling. Journal of Industrial Ecology 20, 1010–1017 (2016). 

7. Zink, T., Geyer, R. & Startz, R. A Market-Based Framework for Quantifying 

Displaced Production from Recycling or Reuse. Journal of Industrial Ecology 20, 

719–729 (2016). 

8. RECOUP, RECycling of Used Plastics Limited Plastics Packaging and Recycling: Consumer Attitudes and Behavior. http://www.recoup.org/p/281/consumerinsight-summary (2014). 

9. Baldwin, A. K., Corsi, S. R. & Mason, S. A. Plastic Debris in 29 Great Lakes 

Tributaries: Relations to Watershed Attributes and Hydrology. Environ Sci Technol 

50, 10377–10385 (2016). 

10. Eriksen, M., Mason, S., Wilson, S., Box, C., et al. Microplastic pollution in the 

surface waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes. Marine Pollution Bulletin 77, 177– 

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