PSU awarded grant for work addressing microplastic pollution on the Oregon Coast

Portland State University has been awarded nearly $2 million in federal funding to continue work tackling microplastic pollution in Oregon’s coastal communities and the Pacific ocean. The money will go to a collaborative three-year effort to reduce microplastic pollution with groups from a wide range of academic, community, municipal and tribal partners, and will focus on filtering microplastics primarily out of hotels, restaurants, and laundromats.

Elise Granek, project lead and professor at Portland State, joins us to share more.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with a nearly $2 million federal grant to reduce microplastic pollution along the Oregon Coast and the Pacific Ocean. The money will go to a Portland State University-led collaboration focused on filtering these tiny man-made particles out of waste water from hotels, restaurants, and laundromats. Elise Granek is a project lead and a professor of environmental science and management at PSU. She joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.

Elise Granek: Thanks so much for having me.

Miller: Earlier in your career, you studied the impacts of various kinds of marine pollution, including drugs like caffeine and Prozac. Why did you turn to microplastic?

Granek: Our lab group has looked at a variety of contaminants that are entering marine waters and affecting ecosystems. And at some point, we became interested in microplastics as another one of those contaminants. I think the thing that really spurred us on was when the Microbead-Free Waters Act was being proposed in 2016, we were really interested in setting a baseline to see how effective that bill would be. That was our first study looking at microplastics in marine animals to understand how much was in them prior to the ban, so that we could follow up and look at how much of a reduction occurred after the ban.

Miller: You’ve been working to learn where microplastic in Oregon is coming from and how it’s entering our water and air. What are some of the biggest things you have already learned?

Granek: I would say one of the biggest things we’ve learned is that whenever we look at a new species, a new animal, a new waterway, unfortunately we see that microplastics are everywhere, and we see that there really is no species, no waterway, no area that is exempt or protected from plastic pollution. I would say that’s our first takeaway.

Miller: As OPB’s Cassandra Profita has written, it’s been found floating in the air above remote mountain tops and in freshly fallen snow in Antarctica. How does it end up in the air?

Granek: A couple of different ways. One of the sources that we know of is that microplastics get aerosolized from roadways. When cars drive down roads, tiny bits of tire wear shed, and some of the road gets abraded as well. And those tiny particles are small enough that sometimes as rain hits the road or as cars are driving down the road, that friction and that movement can aerosolize those particles.

Another source that we suspect is much larger than is generally recognized more broadly is dryer vents. That is one of the things we’ll be looking at in this study. If you have ever looked at where your dryer vents on your house or apartment leaves the building, you might see that there’s quite a bit of lint at the end pipe of that and much of that goes out into the environment and can become aerosolized.

Miller: And so that would be from synthetic fabrics, not cotton or linen, but various kinds of petrochemical-based clothing, tiny fibers of which break down in the wash or in the dryer and end up in the air?

Granek: Probably both. What’s coming out of your dryer vent is a combination of the synthetic and natural fibers that we’re all washing. I think it’s important to remember that we have a lot of synthetics in use, but we also have a number of fabrics and materials, be it sheets or towels or clothes, that are a blend, that are maybe predominantly cotton but may have some synthetic component.

And then we also have an array of natural materials like cotton or bamboo that may be highly manufactured and may have a number of chemical additives added to them to make them soft, or more malleable, or stiffer, or stain resistant. And those chemicals are also in those fibers. Although they are naturally based, we actually call them anthropogenic fibers because they’ve been so significantly modified by human processes.

Miller: Which is different than calling them plastic, but you’re saying that they’ve been so modified that they could have more destructive effects on animal life or the environment?

Granek: Correct. There have been some studies that my colleague has conducted – and a number of folks across the country around the world have conducted – looking at effects of different kinds of fibrous materials, ranging from cotton, to different kinds of semi-synthetic materials, to fully synthetic materials. And there are some effects from some of the natural materials that are used, likely because of the additives and the extensive processing of those materials.

Miller: The effects of large pieces of plastic, getting stuck in a bird’s stomach or in a fish’s system, those are I think relatively obvious. How much do we know about the effects of tiny bits of plastic on living organisms, whether we’re talking about a Dungeness crab, or an oyster, or a human toddler?

Granek: It’s much harder to study humans. We have studied a number of different kinds of animals. And we do know that when we expose them to these fibrous materials, we do see negative effects ranging from things like false senses of satiation. So those anthropogenic particles can get lodged in their gut. It gives them a sense that they’re full, but those particles are not nutritive. So we then see the secondary effect of reduced growth in some cases.

Some studies, including one that we conducted and some studies that colleagues have conducted, have found reproductive effects of microparticle exposure. There’s also some evidence that particularly fibers, which tend to have sort of pointy ends, can cause abrasion in the digestive tract. And a secondary effect of that abrasion is inflammation in the gut. So that’s another effect that we see from some of these very tiny particles.

Miller: The grant that we’re talking about now, and an ongoing related study, they seem less about tracking where microplastics are and more about preventing them from entering our water or our air in the first place. Is it fair to say that these reflect a shift in your research in the last few years?

Granek: Yes. We are still doing some research looking at tracking and effects. But the team of researchers on this project, all of us had spent several years looking at the problem. And I think we got to a point where we can continue to document the problem. But that doesn’t solve the problem. And we decided that we really wanted to contribute to understanding some solutions. So that’s how the grant came about – this group of us developing a proposal to test some solutions to the problem that we have documented fairly extensively in the region, and that has been documented as you mentioned nationally and internationally.

Miller: Can you describe the work that you’ve then already been doing to test the effectiveness of microplastic pollution prevention?

Granek: Yes. We are in the process of conducting a smaller project which is sort of the launching point for this bigger grant. This smaller project is working in four coastal communities in Oregon: Yachats, Depot Bay, Pacific City and Cannon Beach. And in those communities, we’re trying to understand how much microplastic is entering the stormwater system, and how much microplastic is entering the wastewater system. We’ve established that baseline in those four communities. And now we’re in the process of installing two interventions in a subset of the community to test how effective those interventions are at removing microplastics from either the wastewater, or the stormwater, or both, depending on which community.

Miller: What exactly will you be doing then with the new grant?

Granek: As we’ve been working on this project, we’ve really come to recognize that there’s an important year-round coastal population that is likely contributing microplastics through wastewater and stormwater. But these communities in our coastal region swell by fivefold, sometimes tenfold during the holiday season, winter break, or spring break, or summer. And that by working with year-round residents, we only get at a small part of the puzzle. But it won’t address this influx of tourism that we see during these various periods of the year that may be a really significant source of microplastics, particularly in the wastewater.

So this grant is really focused on how to address microplastics being introduced through the tourism industry. Recognizing that tourism is a very critical component of the coastal economy and we don’t want to dissuade tourism. But how can we support tourism by identifying solutions to this potential introduction of microplastics that may occur with tourism? How can we help the tourism industry address that?

Miller: What are some possible solutions?

Granek: The solutions that we’re testing with this project include working with hotels to install filters on their washing machines to reduce what is leaving the facility and going into wastewater treatment plants at the coast. We’re also going to be working with them to install dryer vents, to look at those emissions into the air. And then a third component is developing a new prototype model for a dishwasher filter for large facilities like hotel restaurants and possibly some other major restaurants on the coast to test out that new intervention.

And then we have an education component, whereby we’ll be working with some hotels, some places of lodging for visitors, to do education around the fibers as a source. If you’ve been into a hotel you’ll sometimes see a placard of some sort about how if you don’t want your laundry washed, then you can hang your towel up or put it something on the bed so they don’t change your sheets. There’s a reason for water conservation and energy conservation to not have your sheets washed or your towels washed every day when you’re staying in lodging. But I think people probably don’t think about the microplastics aspect as well. So we’ll be adding some placards to communicate that as another potential reason, another way that tourists can reduce their impact in these coastal communities.

Miller: Is the reason for that – the washing machines and the linens or towels – that even if we think of them as 100% cotton, there’s a chance that they’re not?

Granek: I think there’s two things. One is that they may or may not be 100% cotton, but even if they are 100% cotton, they’re likely releasing anthropogenic particles that have been heavily bleached, for example. So even when we have white sheets, that white is usually cotton that has been bleached. So there are some chemical additives that have been introduced in the processing, the manufacturing of these textiles. There may be other compounds in the linens and towels that, although they’re cotton, may create problems for organisms downstream.

Miller: That gets back to what you were saying earlier, that it’s not only about microplastics, it’s about thinking more broadly about the pollutants that we’re introducing into our world.

Is the appliance industry, broadly, interested in installing the kinds of filters that you’re talking about in the first place, so this wouldn’t have to be an aftermarket add on?

Granek: That is actually one of our hopeful outcomes of this work. There’s been successful legislation in other locations that has attempted to require pre-market filters within washing machines. And those washing machines with those filters are available in Japan, for example. So it is possible for washing machine companies to manufacture them with the filters internally to the machine. The California Legislature passed legislation that would have required washing machines sold in the state of California to include these internal filters. But the governor of California did not sign the legislation. And France a few years ago passed legislation, but I believe it is currently caught up in the courts right now. So it is supposed to go into effect in 2025 or 2026, but I’m not sure what the status of that is.

So yes, ideally, we would have internal filters on these washing machines that would allow consumers to not need to take this extra step of adding an external filter.

Miller: Elise Granek, thanks very much.

Granek: Thank you.

Miller: Elise Granek is a professor of environmental science and management at Portland State University, the project lead on this new project based on a $2 million federal grant to reduce microplastic pollution along the Oregon Coast.

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