PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Plastic is everywhere and a local environmental advocacy group has called for legislative and regulatory action after it said it found plastic throughout the Delaware River watershed.
Faran Savitz, an advocate with PennEnvironment’s Zero Waste program, said researchers found microplastics in more than 130 water samples collected throughout the Delaware River watershed.
“We tested 22 sites on the Delaware River and its tributaries, and every single one had microplastics. North, south, urban, rural, it did not matter,” said Savitz.
There are 18 steps PennEnvironment has called on federal, state and local officials to take, based on those findings.
“We need to get the regulators involved, the industries involved, to help reduce the amount of plastics that are out there,” said Dr. David Velinsky, a senior scientist at the Academy of Natural Sciences who participated in the testing.
“The right regulations, the plastic bag ban, those have worked. Those all need to work in tandem to what we can also do at home and that will help reduce what we see here in the Schuylkill, and what we might see when we ingest, because we are ingesting. We're breathing plastics in right now. “
Among the recommendations from PennEnvironment were laws making plastic manufacturers responsible for the cost of recycling, laws phasing out single-use plastics, including bags and utensils, and regulations preventing companies from dumping microplastics right into rivers, creeks and lakes.
“We have to cut it off at the source. That's the best way to do it,” said Velinsky. “Now at home, again at home, you could use certain filtration for the water that you may be drinking, but it's mainly cutting off at the source.”
