Project Highlight
California Sea Grant (CASG) and the California Marine Sanctuary Foundation (CMSF) recognize the importance of collaborating with key coastal agriculture (ag) stakeholders to prevent ag plastic pollution from entering the waters of neighboring National Marine Sanctuaries. This project will involve stakeholders across the ag plastic chain in creating innovative solutions to address plastic pollution and marine debris in a sector that has historically been left out of conversations.
Project Summary
Farmers turn to plastic hoop houses, drip irrigation tape, fumigation film and polyethylene mulch films as tools for more efficient growing, prevention of weed growth, moisture retention, lowering pesticide use and extending growing seasons. But the range of benefits provided by this type of ‘plasticulture’ also comes with a downside — too much of it is finding its way into nearby streams and oceans. In California’s Monterey County alone, an estimated 7.9 million pounds of plastic mulch and fumigation film are used each year and have become the primary source of plastic found on creek banks that feed into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary where microplastics have been found in all depths of the water column, including deep in the marine canyon.
Agricultural plastics are particularly vulnerable to breakage from weather exposure and mechanical forces leaving macro- and microplastics in the soil that can find their way to waterways, even waters deemed as sanctuaries. Contaminants such as soil clinging to farm-use plastic, have made recycling of ag plastics a significant challenge.
With the help of over $2.7 million in new funding from the NOAA-National Sea Grant Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Marine Debris Challenge Competition, California Sea Grant, California Marine Sanctuary Foundation and their industry partners (Flipping Iron, Andros Engineering, and various berry growers) are aiming to improve our ability to remove and recycle this type of ag plastic thereby significantly reducing amounts that reach nearby waterways.
The project team aims to refine technology and develop best practices that will increase the efficiency and suitability of agricultural plastics for recycling, and then extend these plastic end-of-life solutions to large and small scale growers. This project will result in a collaborative effort to transform growing techniques and processes that work with industry to prevent marine debris from entering the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and the proposed Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
Theresa Sinicrope Talley