August 20, 2021 —
Walking along the shore of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence River, the beaches can seem picturesque and pristine. However, on closer inspection, a barely perceptible form of pollution is encroaching on the natural ecosystem.
Small blue and white plastic foam particles accumulate along the sand, become entangled in plant life and are ingested by fish and animals.
Studies have found evidence that polystyrene nanoparticles – the synthetic material from which foam is made – can accumulate in the human bloodstream and affect blood clotting ability.
John Peach, executive director of environmental advocacy group Save The River, has noticed these particles for years.
“It’s really become quite surprising as we work to pick up litter and plastic, that we see a real buildup of little pellets and smaller particles,” Peach said, “which mostly comes from the floating docks that float all over along the rivers and all along the lakes.”
Peach says the polystyrene billets under the docks along the river help keep them afloat. However, over time, these foam sheets break down or are carved out by wildlife, releasing particles and granules into the river.
“It’s a very real problem because the bigger blocks,” Peach said, “break down into smaller particles, they go down to the size where birds, fish, mammals, they see it as a source of food. They confuse it with little plankton, minnows, insects, and they eat it.”
After fish or birds eat the Styrofoam, the particles can cause intestinal blockages and possibly lead to death, Peach says. “It affects and kills fish, birds. It gets into our water systems, gets into our bloodstream. It’s a very serious problem,” Peach said.
Janet Smith-Staples is a regular volunteer for Save The River’s Trash Free River cleanup program and serves on the Thousand Islands Association as a board member. She has noticed an increase in polystyrene pellets over the past two years. She says cleaning up these pellets is “really strenuous and time consuming”.
The last time Smith-Staples volunteered to clean up Wellesley Island, volunteers “spent hours hunched over in a small area and kept picking up and picking up these little bits” of foam particles.
“It’s kind of disheartening; it’s completely falling apart,” Smith-Staples said. “It gets even smaller and looks like little bits of sand.”
Plastic foam buildup is not unique to the Thousand Islands. “I know it’s a problem in the Great Lakes and in the St. Lawrence River,” Peach said. “I’d bet it’s a problem in Canada. It’s probably a problem around the Adirondacks or wherever we have the combination of floating docks – which are everywhere – and muskrats, minx.”
Peach says there is no easy solution to this waste problem. “As we see this more and more and learn more, we know this is coming to a head.” which becomes exhibited later in the summer.
Peach explains that one possible technique is to wait until the river reaches its highest level to perform industrial vacuuming or dredging to clean up foam particles.
“And for me, it’s remediation. I don’t know what the answer is. I talk to people, I try to learn. I know it’s a big project. But the first thing we can do is come in and stop using this product and these floating docks.”
There are environmentally friendly alternatives to polystyrene billets. Peach says there are steel floats that can support floating docks, as well as virgin PVC pipes that “act like good flows.”
Peach says Save The River is reaching out to the community to educate people about the issue and advocating for state legislation that restricts the use of polystyrene billets because “there’s no longer a need” for them. them now, he said.
“We’re trying to make it very broad coverage to raise awareness because in my experiences, most people who live along the river – and frankly, around the lake – are concerned about the environment. And I think if they start seeing that and they walk up to their dock, they can say, ‘maybe I’m contributing to this, maybe I should do something.’ And the solutions are available.”
CORRECTION 09/15/21: This story has been corrected to be accurate regarding the name of the plastic foam particles used in the billets. “Styrofoam” is the proprietary name for a type of insulation manufactured by DuPont de Nemours, Inc, and is not used in dock billets. This term has been replaced by the more general term “polystyrene”.
