PFQAC Learning Center

PFQAC is committed to educate and advocate for choices each individual, organization and business can make to reduce single-use plastic. A greater QAC community that partners together, shares responsibility for a healthy environment and works toward sustainable change.

Contact us at [email protected] to find out how you can participate in these special events.

Keep up with the latest news from PFQAC and related activities and organizations.

PFQAC has volunteer opportunities tailored to your interest and availability. Contribute to a short term project. Take a shift at a community tabling event. Get involved on a more regular basis in weekly operations or specific initiatives. Just send us an email at [email protected]. We’ll get back to you and discuss the perfect fit for a volunteer opportunity.

While soaking up the relaxing cadence of crashing waves on the beach, no one wants to think about how the ocean has basically become garbage soup. But here’s the buzz-killing reality: There are millions of tons of debris floating around in that water—and most of it is plastic. This constant barrage (the equivalent of 136 billion milk jugs each year, a study published in the journal Science estimates) poses a serious danger to marine life. Animals can get tangled up in this trash or ingest it—either because they mistake it for food or because the plastic has been broken up into tiny particles (aka “microplastics”) floating through their habitats. Equally alarmingly, plastic pollution in the oceans is essentially irreversible. It takes hundreds of years (or longer) to fully degrade; all the while, those pieces of plastic are also leaching toxic chemicals. And we're not just talking about people dumping their garbage overboard. Around 80 percent of marine plastic pollution actually originates on land—either swept in from the coastline or carried to rivers from the streets during heavy rain via storm drains and sewer overflows. Of course, plastic is pervasive throughout our ecosystems (and even our clouds), and our addiction to the stuff is a danger to terrestrial animals as well. And that’s to say nothing of the hazards the plastic crisis poses to our climate and our health too. Given all these dangers, it's in our best interest to try to keep as much plastic as possible out of the waste stream in the first place. The good news? There are many small ways you can have a big impact.

Microplastics are environmental pollutants that prevail in the oceans, remote islands, and polar regions. Exposure to microplastics presents a major emerging threat to the ecosystems due to their potential adverse effects. Herein, we reviewed the literature to provide an up-to-date synopsis of the current understanding of the sources, compositions, and adverse effects of microplastics in humans and the environment. Most studies on microplastics have focused on developing standardized methods for monitoring the occurrence, distribution, and movement of microplastics in the environment, as well as developing microplastic substitutes; however, although humans are exposed to microplastics via various routes, research on the adverse effects of microplastics in humans remains limited. Little is known about the impact of microplastics on human health and the toxic effects that may vary depending on the type, size, shape, and concentration of microplastics. Therefore, more research is needed to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of microplastic toxicity and related pathologies.

Extremely small bits of plastic are everywhere, and the Chesapeake Bay is no exception. The so-called microplastics, often 5 millimeters or less in size, can be scooped from the surface waters of the Patapsco River and combed from the Bay’s underwater grass beds. The Chesapeake Bay Program, a state-federal partnership, leads the Bay restoration effort.

Why is plastic a problem? Fundamentally, plastic is waste.

What is waste? It is hard to define because the degradation of plastic yields such an immense array of products with varying size, morphology, and chemical composition, not to mention the associated matter and organisms that accumulate and colonize the surface.

How it impacts the environment. The main problem with plastic is that it combines components in a way that is novel to the environment of Earth, so that the microorganisms that would otherwise process and transform any waste products through biogeochemical cycles are not able to do so. This leads to the question of whether plastic pollution represents a sufficient force to be an agent of evolution.

The habits and life styles of microorganisms are varied in their consumption and production of energy and matter, and their interaction with particles as well as their position in the food web. Therefore, the presence of plastic and its associated spectrum of waste products offers the opportunity to enact change at various points in an ecological network.

Please let us know a few of your favorite interests. This series will explore these ideas in weekly articles focused on topics chosen by the surveys.

What happens when plastic is discarded?

A significant fraction of plastic escapes the waste management pipeline and enters the environment through both intentional and unintentional human actions. Once plastic is exposed to the non-sterile environment, it begins accumulating a biofilm, and the properties that characterized the plastic during its life cycle begin to change. Thus begins the degradation process, the characteristics and timeline of which depends on the type of plastic, its intended use, its chemical and physical structure including additives, and the environment to which it is leached. Once exposed, a biofilm begins to form almost immediately.

What is a biofilm?

A biofilm is an ecosystem on a microscopic scale which is attached to a particle which could be natural or synthetic. It can consist of photosynthetic and heterotrophic organisms, including bacteria (some, but not all (or even most), of which can be harmful to human health), algae, and viruses (the majority of which target bacteria as their hosts). In addition to these living components, cellular byproducts or substances in the environment can become sorbed to the plastic surface and potentially transported long distances, including pollutants of concern such as heavy metals. This yields a complex interaction between discarded plastics and the environment which is still poorly understood, but which is vital to understand given the present and increasing loads of plastic that escapes the waste management system. It has been proposed that the biofilm community inhabiting plastics represents a unique ecosystem with as yet unknown effects on a global scale.

My story… as a plastic yogurt container

To start my yogurt containing career, I was forged from polypropylene, a type of plastic suitable for food storage. This is important to know because my degradation journey is based on my chemical structure and physical characteristics. In particular, polypropylene is a rigid and very crystalline structure, which makes it difficult for microorganisms to degrade (Maddah 2016). Also, I am a relatively low density plastic so when the tide comes in and takes me into the water I tend to float, because I am less dense than the brackish water in the Chesapeake Bay.

My future

I thought I was going home to be with the other trash…there I was enjoying my trip on the dumpster truck back home to my landfill, having fulfilled my destiny as a conduit for yogurt…anyway, the next thing I knew, we all were jostled when we went over a big bump and out I flew into the great wide world. I thought maybe I would get picked up on the side of the road and back comfortably in a trash bag, but this was not so…the next few weeks were a blur.

Welcome to the beach

When I came to, I was all alone on a beach in what I presumed to be the Chesapeake Bay, based on my knowledge of geography that all young yogurt containers learned in primary school. I seemed to be in an intertidal location because for a portion of the day the sun would beat down on me and disrupt the chemical bonds that made me a suitable and durable container for yogurt (Gewert et al. 2018; Sorasan et al. 2021). Then, the tide would come in and temporarily submerge me. The ebb and flow of the water proved damaging as well by way of mechanical abrasion and this was the start of my fragmentation.

A social magnet

I seem to be a popular meeting area for all variety of organisms including bacteria, some archaea, fungi, microscopic plants, and even some animals. And it all happened so fast! Almost instantly (Rummel et al. 2017). They all gathered on my fragments because it afforded shelter from the dangers of the open water like sunshine, predators, nutrient limitation, and even some protection from some things like antibiotics (Flemming et al. 2016). Not only did this create a whole ecosystem but it also changed the buoyancy of my fragments and led to some of them sinking, sometimes all the way to the sediment, being consumed by animals higher in the trophic chain, or simply accumulating material until the surface was altered enough to fragment and serve as a source of allochthonous carbon for heterotrophic plankton.

All this could then lead to what was once a yogurt container becoming a part of the microbial or biological carbon pump, where the carbon I once contained could be incorporated into biomass, enter into the cycle of labile carbon, or be sequestered as refractory carbon in the water column or stored at the bottom of the ocean or in the sediment (Galgani et al. 2022). Conversely, the biofilm consisting of microorganisms, extracellular polymeric substances, and (in)organic matter shielded my fragment from the sun and prevented further degradation from UV light (Rummel et al. 2017).

A world traveler & meeting strangers

There were also some opportunistic animal pathogens such as Vibrio that just used my fragments to travel to places they otherwise couldn’t get to, they weren’t interested in the community generated by my fragments (Kesy et al. 2020). It is my recalcitrance that makes me a suitable vessel for transporting such organisms long distances–it takes much longer for my particles to break down than other detritus such as leaves or fecal snow.

A fragmented lifestle

Some of my fragments got so small that they can even cross cell membranes and wreak havoc on tissues of higher animals, possibly causing damage to the digestive or respiratory system. Although, an amphipod consumed some of my fragments and its digestive system created even smaller nano-fragments (Mateos‑Cárdenas et al. 2020), so my interaction with animals’ digestive systems can itself lead to further fragmentation, which can be redistributed into the environment once they are egested. It is these smallest of fragments too that can directly impact biogeochemical cycles in addition to indirectly via interaction with the microorganisms responsible for elemental cycling.

My future

In total, I will likely persist as fragments at varying stages of decomposition for a very long time, possibly centuries, and may be transported via currents and turbulence to oceanic gyres where plastic debris tends to accumulate, the deep ocean, various biota, or enter into the carbon cycle. When all is said and done, the final result will be the production of carbon dioxide from my hydrocarbon backbone, as well as transformation in a yet-to-be-discovered form of the additives I contain that once made me an excellent container for yogurt. I will contribute to the geologic record of the Anthropocene by making my home in a strata that in the years to come will define the time period where humans roamed the Earth, eating yogurt.

Introduction

Though there is general agreement that plastic takes a very long time to degrade, it might be worth thinking about what the degradation process is and the products generated by it. Plastic is a catch-all term for a diverse suite of materials, so understanding the degradation of plastic is extremely complicated and difficult to observe.

What is degradation?

It could be classified as mechanical or chemical. These do not occur in isolation and likely interact to generate a spectrum of differently sized and shaped fragments, and with different chemical properties. It is rare, more likely nonexistent, to understand the complete timeline of degradation starting with a “pristine” plastic.

Consider an empty water bottle. Has there ever been a water bottle exposed to the forces of nature, monitored until it was “completely” degraded? What does that mean? What does it look like? It remains a mystery. However, it is known that plastic that gets into the environment, and then into human bodies, can wreak biological havoc.

Amount of Degredation

Large plastics, still in the form that they were manufactured, can interact with large animals when mistaken for a food source, for example.

At the smaller end of the size range (which is much harder to detect), plastic can cross biological membranes and, for example, affect the endocrine system in humans by interacting with and disrupting our natural hormones. This is especially concerning considering that microplastics have been found in human blood and even fetuses.

Understanding the Degredation Process & Spectrum

To better understand how plastic harms wildlife and humans, we must understand how plastic degrades and how the spectrum of materials generated from this degradation process can affect organisms at every step, from a single cell to a whale whose digestive system is stuffed full of plastic. Plastics break down through a number of processes, including:

• Photodegradation: UV light can interact with oxygen to create free radicals which affect the plastic surface and cause structural chemical changes leading to disintegration.
• Thermooxidative degradation: High temperatures can cause similar changes as photodegradation but these effects penetrate beneath the surface layers.
• Hydrolytic degradation: Incorporation of a water molecule can break apart molecules of the polymer into its simpler constituent compounds.
• Biodegradation: Though generally resistant, microorganisms may, at some stages, be capable of metabolizing the carbon or additives in plastic.

Learn More About Plastic Degredation

Grasonville Transfer Station QAC & Marine Trades Association (MTAM) Shrink Wrap Recycling Program.

Queen Anne's County Public Landings is partnering with Plastic Free QAC and Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center to help promote fishing line recycling. There are fishing line recycling containers placed at several of the Public Landings as well as throughout local businesses in QAC.

Recyclables include plastic bottles or containers with 1 or 2 inside the triangle, metal cans and lids, all types of paper products (no tissue, paper towels), cardboard (clean), and glass bottles and jars.

Join our campaign to eliminate single-use plastic bags in Queen Anne’s County!

On July 20, 2023, the Town Council of Centerville passed a ban on single-use carry-out plastic bags, 4-0 with the 5th Council member recusing himself. The ordinance 2023-2 calls for a ban on plastic bags and a 10-cent charge for paper bags.

A single-use plastic bag pollutes the environment throughout its entire lifecycle - from manufacturing to disposal - while serving its purpose for a very short time. This stark imbalance between momentary convenience and lasting environmental damage exemplifies the unsustainable nature of single-use plastics. This type of plastic pollution has a relatively simple, straightforward solution: reusable bags.

Plastic bags are made from oil and natural gas - finite resources with well-documented environmental impacts. While our dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and energy remains unavoidable due to limited alternatives, single-use plastic bags represent an unnecessary drain on these resources, especially given the readily available alternatives.

Banning single-use plastic bags in favor of reusable alternatives would conserve significant non-renewable resources. While paper bags might seem like a viable alternative, they too present environmental challenges, requiring the harvest of trees - another finite resource. There's no justification for depleting our forests when durable, reusable bags offer a superior solution.

Despite having a clear alternative, we continue to default to the convenience of single-use plastic bags. The shift to reusable bags represents a simple yet significant step toward sustainability - one that requires minimal sacrifice while yielding substantial environmental benefits.

Let the Commissioners know that you want the Centreville Ordinance on Single-use Plastic Carry-out Bags expanded to the rest of Queen Anne’s County.

Just leave a message by call or email.

410-758-4098

[email protected]

Welcome to Marylanders Grow Oysters, where waterfront property owners are growing millions of young oysters in cages suspended from private piers. Their goal? To protect the young oysters during their vulnerable first year of life, so they may be planted on local sanctuaries where the oysters can enrich the ecosystem and the oyster population.

Some 35 million years ago, a bolide (an object similar to a meteor or comet) struck the present-day Delmarva Peninsula, creating a 55-mile-wide crater. The depression created by the crater changed the course of rivers and determined the location of the Chesapeake Bay. The first indigenous people settled the Chesapeake Bay area circa 9,500 B.C. Thereafter, the Bay, as we now know it, was created about 10,000 years ago (8,000 B.C.), when melting glaciers flooded the Susquehanna River Valley. Today, fresh water from land drainage measurably dilutes seawater within the Bay. [photo, Skipjacks under sail]The Chesapeake Bay derives its name from the Algonquian word, Chesapiooc (Chesepiuk, Chesepiook, or Chesapoic), though its exact definition is unknown. While Diego Gutiérrez first depicted the Chesapeake Bay, named Bahia de Santa Maria, on his map in 1562, a variation of its current name, Chesapiooc Sinus, was printed for the first time on a 1590 map by John White. In June 1608, Capt. John Smith led two voyages throughout the Chesapeake Bay, and identified it as the "Chesapeack Bay" on his 1612 map. In its midst, European settlers first landed at St. Clement's Island, Maryland, in 1634. Through the lower portion of the Bay, pirates settled and attacked ships off the coast. And, at its southernmost reaches during the Civil War, the first ironclads, the Confederate Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) and the Union's Monitor, fought to a draw near Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. Many shipwrecks, remains of vessels sunk by natural forces, human error, or attack, lie deep beneath the Chesapeake Bay. Generations of watermen have made their living harvesting the bounty of the Chesapeake, while recreational fishing, hunting, and boating attract millions of people each year and contribute significantly to Maryland's economy. Major annual seafood harvests include millions of bushels of crabs, oysters, clams, and eels.

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It runs north-south from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the most productive estuaries in the world, with over 3,600 species of animals and plants. The bay provides vitally important habitats for wildlife, lots of recreational opportunities for people, and is an important fishery upon which both people and wildlife depend.

The Riverkeepers are the primary voice for their river and work through the core strategies of advocacy, enforcement, outreach, and water quality monitoring to achieve our vision of clean waterways. Our Riverkeepers regularly patrol their rivers and tributaries, advocate for strong clean water laws, educate our communities, and serve as guardians for these living resources. Riverkeepers are members of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international movement with the mission to grow a global network of grassroots leaders protecting everyone’s right to clean water. Our Riverkeepers are full-time employees of ShoreRivers who are independently licensed by the Waterkeeper Alliance. ShoreRivers is a member of Waterkeepers Chesapeake, a group of eighteen Chesapeake Bay advocacy programs which are coordinating efforts and building leverage to impact environmental legislation and policy across the watershed. Licensed by the Waterkeeper Alliance, ShoreRivers is part of a growing network of nearly 300 Waterkeepers and affiliate programs in 34 countries whose active presence on waterways is becoming a force for change. The Waterkeeper Alliance sprung from grassroots environmental advocacy begun on the Hudson River in the 1960s. It is now an international center which approves and licenses Waterkeeper programs around the globe. The Alliance provides litigation and administrative resources, assists in developing clean water policy initiatives, and provides a forum for Waterkeeper to exchange information, strategy, and know-how. ShoreRivers, however, has its own board of directors and independently determines its own policies and priorities.

Launched in January 2019, Beyond Plastics is a nationwide project based at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, that pairs the wisdom and experience of environmental policy experts with the energy and creativity of grassroots advocates to build a vibrant and effective movement to end plastic pollution. We use our deep policy and advocacy expertise to build a well-informed, effective movement seeking to achieve the institutional, economic, and societal changes needed to save our planet, and ourselves, from the negative health, climate, and environmental impacts of the production, usage, and disposal of plastics.

The mission of the Wildfowl Trust of North America, Inc. and its physical site, the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center, is to promote stewardship and sustainability through environmental education and habitat restoration. The Wildfowl Trust of North America Inc. was founded in 1979 with the intent to protect wetlands for waterfowl while maintaining captive waterfowl collections for educational purposes. In 1981 the Trust purchased a 315-acre farm tract in Grasonville, Maryland on which it initially established Horsehead Wetlands Center and opened to the public in 1985. In 1998 the trust purchased an additional 195 acres and placed the now 510-acre preserve under conservation easement.

We are a non-profit dedicated to promoting the recreational marine industry and the preservation of waterways our businesses rely on. Since our founding in 1972, we’ve come to comprise nearly 400 marine related businesses. Our passionate board represents all aspects of the industry and geographic areas of the State with a fair and balanced approach. Our mission is too grow Maryland’s recreational boating industry through our advocacy, workforce development program, and the promotion of our members. As the advocate and voice of the recreational boating industry, we review more than 2,000 bills each year during the Maryland General Assembly and take action on more than 50 bills. Our legal advocacy is essential to our purpose.

The Maryland Green Registry is a free, voluntary program offering tips and resources to help businesses and other organizations set and meet their own goals on the path to sustainability. Collectively, Maryland Green Registry members have reported saving $83 million annually through the proven, practical measures they have shared in their online member profiles.

Plastic Pollution Coalition is a non-profit communications and advocacy organization that collaborates with an expansive global alliance of organizations, businesses, and individuals to create a more just, equitable, regenerative world free of plastic pollution and its toxic impacts.

Our waterways are polluted – they are being choked with nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment runoff from farm practices, urban and residential stormwater runoff, and outdated septic systems. We believe there are real solutions and we work to develop projects and programs that will improve the health of our waters - now and in the future. Our core focus is the waterways of the Chester, Choptank, Sassafras, Miles, and Wye rivers, Eastern Bay, and the Bayside Creeks. Our main office is in Easton and we have regional offices in Chestertown and Galena. We have a dedicated staff of educators, scientists, restoration specialists, and advocates focused on policies and projects that will improve the health of our rivers. ShoreRivers protects and restores our waterways for everyone who lives and works on the Eastern Shore. We advocate for strong clean-water laws to ensure a legacy of thriving waterways and help galvanize communities to act to improve the health of our rivers. ShoreRivers assists landowners, towns, and communities in funding and developing innovative pollution-reduction projects. We help farmers adopt sustainable practices and protect their lands from runoff and erosion. We educate students across the Eastern Shore, teaching about our river networks and helping our young people develop a connection with and care for the rivers and appreciate how their own lives are enriched by this connection with nature.

Sierra Club is the largest and most enduring grassroots environmental advocacy organization in the nation. Our motto: Explore, Enjoy & Protect the Planet. We support local service and nature outings, educate the public on the myriad pressing issues stemming from the climate emergency, plastic pollution crisis and collapse of biodiversity. We advocate for bold systemic changes at the local and state level for a just and equitable transition from dirty fossil fuels to 100% Clean Renewable Energy, Zero Waste, and Clean Transportation for all while protecting our air, water, land & wildlife for future generations!

Trash Free Maryland is the leading advocate for public policies and initiatives to reduce trash pollution in the state. Trash Free Maryland was incorporated in 2015 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization focused on lasting change to prevent trash pollution. It was born years earlier when in 2009 Trash Free Maryland's original executive director, Julie Lawson, was asked to chair a policy working group for Alice Ferguson Foundation's Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative. This group brought together advocates, government employees, and elected officials to discuss trash policy. Members of the group worked to support plastic bag legislation sponsored by Delegate Al Carr in 2010, and then formed the Trash Free Maryland and Trash Free Virginia Alliances in order to assist with future litter reduction efforts. The Trash Free Maryland Alliance eventually became a standalone entity, and the "Alliance" was dropped in the name, so now we are simply Trash Free Maryland.

The Department of Natural Resources leads Maryland in securing a sustainable future for our environment, society, and economy by preserving, protecting, restoring, and enhancing the State’s natural resources.

Maryland Environmental Service is heavily involved in Maryland’s recycling efforts. We operate two of the State’s largest recycling facilities for glass, plastics and metals and operate a residential recycling program for the Midshore Counties. Located on the upper Eastern Shore of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, the Midshore Regional Solid Waste System consists of four planned facilities that will serve the municipal solid waste needs of Talbot, Caroline, Kent and Queen Anne’s Counties for 80 years. This unique partnership is the only regional solid waste management agreement in Maryland. Please contact 1-800-I-Recycle (1-800-473-2925) with recycling questions, concerns or compliments, or send an email.

Published by the Maryland State Archives, the Maryland Manual On-Line is updated daily.

Queen Anne's County (QAC), eastern Maryland, U.S., is bordered by the Chester River to the north, Delaware to the east, and Chesapeake Bay to the west.