Plastic Places - Newburry Port MA

On August 7th 2012 we went on a river cruise in Newburry Port Massachusetts. The cruise traveled around Newburry Port and up the Merrimack River. Before the cruise we took a walk on the beach and picked up trash along the way. Among the usual balloons, bottles, wrappers and straws, I kept finding these plastic white disks.

I thought, "What are these? I know I have seen them before." Then I remembered I read a blog article on the NH Marine Debris blog about the Hookset New Hampshire Water treatment plant over a year ago.

The article read, "Emergency Beach Cleanup!  Small white circular mesh disks, approximately 2" in diameter, were released into the Merrimack River from the Hooksett, NH Wastewater Treatment Facility following heavy rainstorms .... It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of the disks were released to the Merrimack River - these are now in MA and NH coastal areas and beaches."

Over a year later and these discs are still washing up on New Hampshire and Massachusetts beaches. I found 12 of them on our short walk. The interesting thing is we know where these disks came from. Here is a map of the path the disks took from Hooksett NH.

 

It shows that plastic debris in the ocean can come from pretty far up stream. Those plastic disks had to travel quite a ways down the Merrimack before reaching the ocean. The disks were identifiable, but what other plastic debris comes from Hooksett, or further upstream, in, say Concord? The same question goes for any river. I have captured plastic flowing down the Connecticut River. This study shows a definite connection to roadside litter and debris in the ocean.