Aquatic Trash Prevention Information and Resources for Stormwater and Solid Waste Practitioners

In early 2021, EPA Trash Free Waters, in collaboration with the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA), KCI Technologies, and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), held two stakeholder dialogue sessions to identify major challenges that municipal stormwater and solid waste departments faced when trying to more effectively address the issue of trash in waterways. These meetings brought together leading stormwater and solid waste professionals from cities and towns across the U.S.

Following these meetings, the project partners compiled the following list of existing resources and information that municipalities might find helpful, given the types of challenges that they tend to have in common. Under each of the four major challenges listed below, we have identified several relevant reports, tools, and databases that are currently available for public use. This is not a comprehensive list of the potentially useful resources that are currently available. We will continue to update this list with links to new resources and information as needed. 

Based on the information gathered during the stakeholder meetings, the project partners generated several ideas for new projects, resources, or tools that could help to address the challenges identified. The comprehensive summary report sharing what was learned from the three stakeholder meetings is available on the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance website. 

Major Challenges Identified:

1. Municipalities Lack Funds and/or Staff Capacity to Effectively Control Aquatic Trash
2. Lack of Public Understanding of the Problem of Litter and Aquatic Trash and the True Cost of Waste Management
3. Insufficient Information About Various Interventions that Municipalities Can Take to Reduce Aquatic Trash
4. Need for Enhanced Regional Cooperation Amongst Neighboring Jurisdictions and Inter-Agency Cooperation Across Government Offices in a Single Locale

Challenge #1: Municipalities Lack Funds and/or Staff Capacity to Effectively Control Aquatic Trash

Many of the stormwater and solid waste management professionals cited funding and staff shortages as one of the most significant challenges that they face in their work to reduce aquatic trash. While a variety of different explanations for the causes and the proposed solutions of these funding shortages, nearly all participants agreed on the need for additional resources. The following were identified  as elements contributing to a lack of sufficient funding and staff to effectively manage aquatic trash:

• Not only is there a need for more federal grants to local governments for trash clean-up and prevention, but there is a lack of staff time and capacity to apply for and manage these grants, and if awarded, the reporting requirements tend to be onerous. 
• There is insufficient understanding amongst decision-makers and the public of the true cost of efficiently cleaning up and preventing litter, resulting in underfunded stormwater and solid waste departments. This may be due to a lack of information as well as the need for greater outreach and education efforts (see #2 below).
• The cost of cleaning up litter falls overwhelmingly on municipal governments and their taxpayers (primary consumers), more so than than on other key stakeholders, like plastic packaging producers, retailers, and fast-food restaurants.  Dialogue participants discussed local and national efforts towards Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)  as a possible way to address this problem. 

Potentially Helpful Resources

1. The Water Finance Clearinghouse is a great resource to help communities locate information and resources that will assist them in making informed decisions for their drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure needs.
2. EPA’s Green Infrastructure Funding Opportunities page lists various stormwater funding resources.
3. EPA’s Fed FUNDS presents information tailored to water and wastewater utilities on federal disaster and mitigation funding programs from EPA, FEMA, HUD and SBA. Search by type of utility (e.g. public, private non-profit) and see numerous success stories in your state.
4. Municipal Ombudsman: Municipalities/utilities can contact the Municipal Ombudsman, who serves as an independent, impartial, and confidential resources to assist communities in navigating EPA’s CWA programs. The Ombudsman can also discuss available resources on technical assistance opportunities, federal funding resources, CWA flexibilities, and integrated planning. 
5. EPA’s Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Finance Center is working on stormwater utility materials/ case studies and hosted recent stormwater funding webcasts posted online.
   1. Webinar 1: EPA Programs for Stormwater Funding and Financing
   2. Webinar 2: Stormwater Infrastructure Funding and Equity
6. Extended Producer Responsibility: Updated Guidance for Efficient Waste Management: This report updates the 2001 Guidance Manual for Governments on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), which provided a broad overview of the key issues, general considerations, and the potential benefits and costs associated with producer responsibility for managing the waste generated by their products put on the market.  OECD (2016), Extended Producer Responsibility: Updated Guidance for Efficient Waste Management, OECD Publishing, Paris.
7. Environmental Financing Centers (EFC): EPA maintains a network of regional Environmental Finance Centers that provide general assistance and project management services upon request.  However, specific finance mechanisms for introduction of a new type of infrastructure like aquatic trash capture are not currently presented online.  Some EFCs, including the University of Maryland and Sacramento State, have training and other resources to assist with financing stormwater management programs. Though not specifically focused on aquatic trash capture, the Region 3 EFC at U of MD has, for example online training in how to establish stormwater fees in general.
8. Adopt-a-Drain Programs: Many cities and towns have developed “adopt-a-drain” programs through which volunteers take responsibility for clearing trash out of storm drains in their neighborhood. UNC, Duke, and NOAA developed an app to facilitate adopt-a-drain programs. The app allows individuals or neighborhood groups to register the adopted drain (inlet) and upload data on plastics collected to an online database. Adopt-a-Road and Adopt-a-Spot programs are similar community-driven programs that rely on volunteers to clean trash off of roads and other locations.

Challenge #2: Lack of Public Understanding of the Problem of Litter and Aquatic Trash and the True Cost of Waste Management

Many stakeholders spoke about challenges stemming from a lack of public understanding of the aquatic trash issue and its importance. Specifically, public unawareness or apathy leads to persistent littering behavior, a lack of political will for policies to reduce aquatic trash, and pushback against rate increases for solid waste and stormwater fees. There is a need for increased public outreach on the issue of aquatic trash in general and greater public engagement by municipal stormwater and solid waste departments. 

Potentially Helpful Resources

1.  CEC’s “Last Stop: The Ocean” Campaign Toolkit & Website: This is a collection of downloadable posters, banners, ads, and animated videos that can be used to educate the public about littering. Created for cities, local or regional governments, watershed associations, NGOs and educational institutions, this collection of materials is designed to create awareness on water and trash flows and provide simple solutions for individuals to prevent and reduce land-based marine litter.
2. Keep America Beautiful (KAB) 2020 National Litter Study: The study includes a survey examining public attitudes about litter, a visible litter survey that provides an estimate of the litter on the ground across the United States, behavioral observations that shed light on littering behavior in public, and a survey that estimates the public costs of litter in the United States. The findings of KAB’s most recent litter study can help to inform strategic outreach and education efforts related to trash and littering.
3. NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Turning the Tide on Trash – A Learning Guide on Marine Debris: This learning guide contains lesson plans and background information on the topic of marine debris to help introduce educators, students, and researchers to the issue. The content is flexible and appropriate for grades K-12.
4. California Trash Amendments: In 2015, the California State Water Resources Control Board adopted statewide water quality provisions requiring that trash discharged from regulated stormwater systems be significantly reduced. These are referred to as “the Trash Amendments.” Included in the Trash Amendments documentation is a particularly useful background document that explains the impacts of trash pollution.
   1. Another appendix to the California Trash Amendments is a summary of Economic Considerations, which provides useful information on the costs associated with trash pollution.
5. Understanding Plastic Pollution in the Great Lakes: This article by Dr. Chelsea Rochman is an excellent summary of the impacts of plastics in the context of the Great Lakes.

Challenge #3: Insufficient Information About Various Interventions that Municipalities Can Take to Reduce Aquatic Trash

Local governments are hesitant to implement interventions that have not been tested and that are not proven to be effective. Additionally, understanding the effectiveness of various interventions is hindered by a lack of high-quality baseline data on trash loadings and/or adequate systems for monitoring escaped trash over time. There is a desire for guidance and resources on trash capture, outreach campaigns, preventing illegal dumping, and other interventions.

Potentially Helpful Resources

1. River Network’s Waste in Our Waters - A Community Toolkit for Aquatic Litter Removal: A valuable step-by-step guide for addressing litter in communities, looking at upstream and downstream interventions, and considered a must-read for community activists and public works officials alike. It provides information to aid with various efforts along the roadmap including assessing a community’s aquatic litter issues, planning a cleanup effort, choosing a litter capture device, and responsibly disposing of the waste you collect.
2. Duke University’s Plastic Pollution Prevention and Collection Technology Inventory: The Plastic Pollution Prevention and Collection Technology Inventory was created to aid local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders in identifying technologies that may help to remediate hotspots of marine plastic pollution.
   1. Related journal article: Plastic pollution solutions: emerging technologies to prevent and collect marine plastic pollution
3. Benioff Ocean Initiative’s Plastic waste capture in rivers - An inventory of current technologies: This paper offers an inventory of several prominent river plastic waste collection technologies operating in different river systems around the world. The inventory includes information on energy source, maintenance, suitable conditions, cost, dimensions, and environmental impact of many different available technologies and could be a useful resource for those interested in trash capture.
4. EPA Trash Free Waters Trash Stormwater Permit Compendium: The Trash Stormwater Permit Compendium provides Phase I and Phase II Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit writers with tools and information they can use in developing trash-related provisions for MS4 permits.
5. California Trash Monitoring Methods and Assessments Playbook: This study assessed of the accuracy, repeatability, and efficiency of some existing trash monitoring methodologies. The findings of this project are intended to help inform California’s statewide effort to adopt standardized monitoring methods to support the State Water Board’s Trash Amendments, but the report could be useful to anyone involved in monitoring trash loadings.
6. Monitoring Considerations for the Trash Amendments: A report synthesizing information from past research on trash monitoring to provide monitoring considerations and guidance for permit writers and permittees when developing trash monitoring programs. Prepared by the California Ocean science Trust for the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and the California Ocean protection council (OPC).
7. International Trash Trap Network (ITTN): ITTN is a collaboration between Ocean Conservancy and the U of T Trash Team to inspire groups around the world to trap trash on their waterfronts, and to quantify this impact collectively as part of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. The ITTN website contains training videos and data sheets to help organizations collect data from trash capture devices.

Challenge #4: Need for Enhanced Regional Cooperation Amongst Neighboring Jurisdictions and Inter-Agency Cooperation Across Government Offices in a Single Locale

Several solid waste and stormwater management professionals spoke about the benefits that greater cooperation with other government agencies and other jurisdictions has brought to their work. Some cited examples of data sharing between departments to improve program operations as well as sharing resources. Stakeholders also spoke about the challenges stemming from a lack of coordination, which include 1) a lack of clarity regarding the distribution of responsibilities within a municipal government to manage litter and an overall lack of ownership over the problem and its solutions, and 2) difficulty tracking and regulating litter in watersheds that encompass multiple jurisdictions.

Potentially Helpful Resources

Guide to Successful Local Government Collaboration in America’s Regions: The National League of Cities prepared a basic guidance document for inter-governmental cooperation and coordination with assistance from the Alliance for Regional Stewardship.

The previously recommended River Network report -Waste in Our Waters - A Community Toolkit for Aquatic Litter Removal- provides good examples of inter-jurisdictional cooperation.