In the Salish Sea region, researchers examine the impacts of plastic and urge legislators to act.
At any given moment, it is estimated that six tons of plastic are washed up along the beaches of the Salish Sea. The majority of salmon have microplastics in their stomachs.
Plastic production started over a century ago as an effort to make items more affordable. It spread like wildfire. Suddenly it was in everything, from combs to clothing. Now, researchers are figuring out how much the fire has spread, the damage it has caused and — most important — how to use data for change.
Zero Waste Washington, a Seattle-based nonprofit, conducts research and pilot projects to show the impacts of plastic and responses. It has also helped pass laws such as the reusable bag legislation prohibiting single-use plastic carryout bags and charging a fee for acceptable bags.
New research, different discussion
Discussing plastics with legislators is different this year, according to Zero Waste executive director Heather Trim, because new studies show direct harm from plastic.
“The specific research projects that are going on around the world are adding up, and it’s making a huge difference,” she said. “We need the very specific, tailored, hyperfocused studies because those are real.”
A recent non-plastic example of research and legislation working hand-in-hand, according to Trim, is Washington’s work to regulate the chemical 6PPD, which is used to give longer life to vehicle tires.
Like plastics, 6PPD also makes its way from the roads into stormwater runoff and has been found at lethal levels for coho salmon. Washington was the first state to conduct research into the issue and became the first state to pass legislation, in March 2024, to regulate 6PPD in order to protect aquatic life.
The research done on 6PPD in Washington is leading to research all over the world, according to Trim.
“Often there’s sort of a tip of the iceberg and it turns out to be a bigger problem than we know,” Trim said. “There is a tipping point.”
For 6PPD regulation, the tipping point was the death of local coho salmon. The chemical in high levels can kill coho within a day. It was determined to be the main cause of pre-spawn mortality as they return from their journey in the ocean and back to freshwater.
In Bellingham, habitat restoration has led to chum salmon appearing in places they haven’t been present for a century. The Department of Transportation spent around $32 million in 2021 replacing culverts with bridges at the points where the creek crosses Interstate 5 and Old Fairhaven Parkway. With these barriers gone, salmon are making it up the creek at least as far as I-5.
From August 2024 to February 2025, Let’s Talk Trash workers removed nearly 77 tons of debris, much of it plastic, from Georgia Strait and the San Juan island, made possible through a $542,000 grant from British Columbia’s Ministry of Environment.
Yet some hope for mitigation before plastic production, not after.
The severity of plastic accumulation in the region calls for intervention, according to Susanne Brander, an associate professor and ecotoxicologist at Oregon State University.
“If we don’t provide those data to state regulators right now, they aren’t going to have the impetus to pass legislation that would create safe thresholds for marine ecosystems or that would provide an impetus to reduce the production of plastic,” Brander said.
‘Easy to forget’
Plastic from land is transported downstream and ends up in the ocean. About 80% of ocean plastics are land-based. The most concerning are micro- and nanoparticles, broken-down plastic too small to see with the naked eye.
Looking at his desk, Brian Bingham, Western Washington University director of marine and coastal sciences, pointed out there were hundreds of plastics sitting there that he relied on. It is difficult to approach stopping plastic production when it is intertwined in daily activities. It can be harder to discuss when the plastic isn’t as visible as objects on a desk.
“You see all kinds of things diluted in the water and then it gets so small you can’t see it. It’s easy to forget it’s there. You go out and you swim and it’s beautiful. It’s easy to forget,” Bingham said.
Since 1950, when plastic production first took off, roughly 9.1 billion tons of plastic have been produced. Each year, the amount of new plastic produced weighs to about 400 million tons. In 2018, in the United States alone, 35.7 million tons were produced which equals to about 220 pounds of plastic per person, more than the average weight of a female black bear.
Plastic is a long-lasting product, some of which could take hundreds of years to break down. Even then, it is still present in micro and nano particles.
“If we stopped all microplastics right now, we would still see continuing increases in microplastics for decades. There’s just so much out there,” Bingham said.
So where does it all go?
An estimated range of 75 to 199 million tons of plastic are in our oceans, with an additional 8 to 12 million tons entering each year. As researchers look into the extent of their impact, activists and lawmakers have been lying in wait for their findings.
Brander has been working on plastics research for over a decade. She describes research papers as having two flavors:
- Occurrence: pin-pointing where plastic is.
- Model organisms: lab tests where information is gathered such as what plastic ingestion means for animals.
“The field is getting away from just saying it’s out there to trying to say, ‘OK, it’s out there and this is why it matters,’” Brander said.
According to Brander, researchers are honing in on small synthetic particles being ingested by animals and the interference they may have on necessary functions such as seeking a mate or food.
Brander believes that there is enough information about plastics now to begin reducing production and promoting extended producer responsibility. This would shift the strain of plastic reduction away from consumers and hold producers more accountable.
“That’s kind of where we’re stuck right now where you have one group saying we have enough data. We’re still producing more but we have a lot of evidence that we need to do something about this now,” Brander said. “And you have another group that’s saying, ‘well, we’re profiting off of plastics, and we don’t necessarily want to make those difficult changes yet.’”
Action to reduce and mitigate marine plastics depends on legislation and lawmakers. Brander says that she wished it didn’t depend on politics, but it does because that is where the funding for research comes from.
Progress on this issue won’t be made on the federal level the next four years, according to Brander. The emphasis will be on a state level and on international efforts.
Global efforts
The Global Plastics Treaty was started with one goal: stopping plastic pollution. Starting in December 2017, the United Nations Environment Assembly began work on the treaty. It is an international agreement still under negotiation with 103 countries supporting the treaty in its entirety and over 175 nations agreeing that there must be an end to plastic pollution. The most recent negotiation on the treaty was in November 2024, and a continuation of these negotiations are set to continue sometime this year.
Brander is a member of the Scientists’ Coalition, a group of independent scientists advocating for the Global Plastics Treaty.
“It gives me hope that there are other countries that do want to be quite ambitious in terms of their approach to the treaty,” she said. “It’s helpful to see that our approach is not the global approach and maybe the United States will be back on board in a few years.”
— By Margaret Baumgartner
Also read in Salish Current:
• “The season of (more!) waste,” Dec. 17, 2024
• “Recycling isn’t a scam. Plastics recycling is.” Oct. 4, 2024
• “The hidden contamination of small plastics,” July 30, 2024
• “To the rescue: saving lives, taking action on plastic trash in the Salish Sea,” Sept. 14, 2023