 All right, good afternoon everybody. My name is Megan Lowry. I am a media officer with the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. Thank you so much for joining us today for a presentation on the report that was just released this morning titled Reckoning with the US Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste. You can now download a copy of the report and other supporting materials at www.nap.edu and a recording of this webinar will be available in the coming weeks on the National Academies website. For those of you who are not familiar with the US National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine, we are private nonprofit institutions that provide independent objective analysis and advice to the US to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. For each requested study, panel members are chosen for their expertise and experience and they serve pro bono to carry out the study statement of task. The reports that result from this study represent the consensus view of the committee and must undergo external peer review before they are released as did this report. We have several members of the committee here with us today to discuss their findings, but before I turn it over to them, I want to go over just a few reminders. Please note that this presentation is scheduled to last one hour, so we'll start off with the presentation and then after that we'll open it up to any questions you may have. To ask a question, all you have to do is type it into the Q&A box at the bottom of your screen and you are welcome to submit a question at any time. So now I'd like to go ahead and introduce Margaret Spring, Chief Conservation and Science Officer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Chair of the Committee that wrote the report and Cara Lavender Law, Research Professor of Oceanography at the Sea Education Association. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Margaret. Thank you, Megan. Appreciate that. I'm Margaret Spring and I'm pleased to be here to present the report, Reckoning the U.S. Role and Global Ocean Classic Waste from the National Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine. This report was requested by Congress to the SAVE RC's 2.0 Act by Partisan Peoples of Legislation and sponsored by NOAA's Marine Debris Program. I want to thank our sponsors for their dedication over long periods of time to this important topic. Next, the National Academy selected this committee composed of these 10 experts from a range of scientific backgrounds and disciplines to write the report. I'd like to recognize the exemplary work of the committee members who met virtually four years during COVID and volunteered their extremely valuable time to come together to write this comprehensive report. Many of them are on the line and are available to answer questions at the end of the presentation. I also want to recognize the tireless work of the Academy's team, particularly our study director, Dr. Megan May, assisted by Bridget McGovern and Kenseth City, al-Sharif in producing the report. And finally, I'd also like to thank Dr. Susan Roberts, the director and all the members of the Academy's Ocean Studies Board for their longtime support of this topic and project. So today I'll be joined by Dr. Karen Lavender-Law of our committee to present the findings. Over the past year, we've reviewed hundreds of studies and held public meetings where we heard from experts, the sponsors of the legislation represented by the office of the senator's White House and Sullivan, a bipartisan team, federal and state agencies including from NOAA and EPA, legal experts, industry and waste management organizations, and scientists and conservation groups. And as Megan indicated, together the committee reached consensus on everything you read in the report. Next. The plastics are widely utilized throughout society because of their useful properties from durability and flexibility to lightness and strength. They're found in a wide range of consumer and industrial applications and in medical settings they use the plastics to improve patient and work for safety and have also been used to advance healthcare treatment. Next. The plastic waste is present in essentially every marine and freshwater habitat from streams and lakes to beaches and beach sea sediments. The global production of plastics worldwide is increasing and the amount of plastic waste generated and entering our environment including our ocean is also projected to increase. A garbage truck of plastic waste every minute goes into our ocean. This is a staggering amount. To date, voluntary actions while important have not been sufficient to reduce the flow of plastic waste and the economic cost of addressing the problem are substantial. For example, in terms of just direct cost, the US spends roughly $11.5 billion a year on cleanup from trash leakage into our environment. And state cities and counties together spend at least $1.3 billion. This does not include the value of lost revenues or services from our ocean including ecosystem services. Next. This report is the first synthesis of scientific knowledge about the United States role in ocean plastic waste as defined by a six-part statement of task that you'll find in the report. We hope it'll serve as a useful source document with over 30 pages of references along with tables and appendices. Because NOAA commissioned this report prior to the final enactment of the legislation, this is actually the first of many reports called for in that bill and that information will supplement the information in this report. The committee approached this task in a systematic way as you see from the organization of the report, starting with the production of plastic to its transformation to plastic waste and ultimately its fate in the environment in our ocean. Next. So the report's overarching recommendation responds to the sponsor's request that the committee recommend potential means to reduce the United States' contributions to global ocean plastic waste. Our recommendation, which is the fourth, is that the U.S. should create a coherent comprehensive and cross-cutting federal research and policy strategy to identify, implement, and assess intervention spanning plastics production use, disposal, and input to the environment. You'll see that we set a deadline for the end of next year for the development of that strategy and a re-look at it, an effectiveness in 2025. Next. No single solution can greatly reduce the flow of plastic waste to the ocean, but a suite of actions or what we call interventions from source to sea can reduce ocean plastic waste and achieve environmental and social benefits. The committee recommended that the U.S. strategy take a systemic action in each of six stages of the plastic life cycle, which you see from this diagram. The committee's three other recommendations relating to solid waste production and tracking and monitoring would be part of this larger strategy. And we'll go into those recommendations in more detail later in the presentation. But first, let's review what the committee learned about the U.S. contribution to global ocean plastic waste that led to these recommendations. Next. For this, I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Cara Lavender-Law, and she'll explain the report's findings on plastic production, waste generation, and waste leakage, as well as where it is distributed in the environment, which underpinned the call for a national strategy. Cara, over to you. Thank you, Margaret. I'm very pleased and honored to be here representing the committee today. Next slide, please. As you're probably aware, global plastic production has rapidly increased since the start of commercial production, and we found that it has increased nearly 20-fold from 1966 to 2015. In 2019, North America produced almost one-fifth of all global plastics. In our work, the committee found that the international system of plastic production, use, and trade complicates efforts to fully quantify the role of the United States. Well, one example is the annual production data, which has at times been reported for the United States together with Canada, and at other times for all NAFTA countries, but not solely for the United States. Further, we were unable to access data on polyethylene teraphthalate, or PET resin. Whether data are simply challenging to identify and access or completely absent is not clear. For these reasons, we could not comprehensively quantify plastics production in the United States. Next slide, please. We were able to identify estimates of municipal solid waste generation, including plastic waste in the United States, and we found that in the U.S., the per-person municipal solid waste generation rate ranges from 2.2 to 2.7 kilograms per person per day. That's about four and a half to six pounds of plastic waste generated per person per day, and that range just depends on the reference that you examine. This is two to eight times greater than the waste generation rates of many countries around the world. While only 4.3 percent of the world's population lives in the United States, the nation was the top generator of plastic waste in 2016, totaling 42 million metric tons. That's about 130 kilograms, or 287 pounds per person per year. So for this reason, the Committee recommends that the United States should substantially reduce solid waste generation to reduce plastic waste in the environment and to reduce the environmental, aesthetic, and economic and health costs of managing solid waste and litter. Next slide, please. Over time, U.S. waste generation and plastic waste generation continues to grow. What you see on the left is a graphic of plastic waste in units of million metric tons as a function of time from 1960 to 2017, and you see that this has been a nearly constant increase. On the right side, we show how this solid waste has been managed, and what you see is that in the United States, the majority of our municipal solid waste is landfill, with smaller amounts of plastic waste managed through combustion and recycling. A word about recycling. Although recycling is technically possible for some plastics, relatively little plastic waste is recycled in the United States. That number is about 8.7 percent for the year 2018. Barriers to recycling include the wide range of materials, and by that we mean the plastic resins plus additives in the waste stream, increasing complexity of products in the waste stream, including multi-layer materials and multi-material items, and the expense of sorting contaminated single stream recycling collections. In addition, there are economic challenges because of the low cost of virgin plastics paired with market volatility for these recycled or reprocessed materials. So the committee found that although recycling will likely always be a component of the strategy to manage plastic waste, today's recycling processes and infrastructure are insufficient to manage the diversity, complexity, and quantity of plastic waste in the United States. Next slide, please. So this slide illustrates ways that waste can leak from the system, even when we have a robust solid waste management system reaching 100 percent of the population. So you see these little black squares indicating that the user could accidentally or intentionally lose a piece of waste. Waste can fall out of overflowing garbage cans or be blown out by the wind, and can be lost during collection, transport, and even at the solid waste facility. Although we do note that permitted solid waste facilities are regulated, and thus they have multiple processes in place to prevent leakage. Of course, once in the environment, this waste is much more difficult to recover for later treatment or disposal. In our examination of litter surveys and community science efforts, we found that plastics make up a large percentage, 70 to 80 percent, of what is found in the environment as litter. And the majority of these plastic items are single use items, including packaging, as well as tobacco-related items and unidentified fragments from larger items. Next slide, please. So after addressing plastic production and waste generation and waste management, we examined how plastic waste can leak into the environment and be transported to the ocean. Next slide. This schematic illustrates the multiple pathways that plastic waste can take to make its way to the ocean, including in water by streams and rivers, through runoff and stormwater, and through treated wastewater outflows. It can enter the ocean directly from shorelines. It can be blown in the air where winds can suspend and transport plastic waste, and also enter the ocean directly from inputs through activities carried out at sea, like shipping, fishing, and aquaculture, or recreation. We found that the transport of plastic waste to the ocean in the United States cannot be comprehensively estimated from available data. However, individual studies do show sizeable transport of both microplastics and larger plastic waste along a variety of these pathways. Further, we found that plastic waste discharge to the ocean varies greatly with location and in time. And this reflects variability both in the generation by specific sources. It also reflects variability in the effectiveness of waste collection or littering and variability in the transport processes themselves, such as river and stream flows, ocean waves, currents, and tides, and winds. Next slide, please. Here we're showing a schematic of the marine environment from the coastlines to the deep sea, where the boxes that you see illustrate reservoirs or compartments where plastic waste may reside, and the arrows indicate pathways between these reservoirs. There's ample literature to illustrate that plastics are found as contaminants through all of these reservoirs in the marine environment, including in marine life. But again, plastic amounts in the specific reservoirs or in the ocean as a whole can't currently be accurately quantified from existing environmental data. Research to date suggests that the distribution and concentrations of plastic waste in these reservoirs of the ocean, as well as in similar reservoirs in the Laurentian Great Lakes, can vary substantially across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Next slide, please. Leaked plastic waste in the environment is having devastating impacts on our ocean, on wildlife, and on people and communities. This is a photo of an endangered Hawaiian monk seal in the Papahanao Makua Kea Marine National Monument that was found entangled in a large plastic jug. So the photo illustrates that in addition to lost fishing gear, leaked plastics of all kinds and sizes pose a threat to marine life. We should note though that the seal was found alive and the jug was successfully removed. There's now ample evidence that marine life across a wide array of species are affected by interactions with plastic waste. Next slide, please. Studies to date show that more than 900 marine species are known to suffer from plastic ingestion or entanglement, and these two graphics depict those species that have been had these documented interactions. So on the left in yellow, you see species that have been found to have ingested plastic debris and on the right in red, species that have become entangled. The size of the boxes represents how many species of each group are known to have been affected. So the larger the box, the greater number of species. An evaluation of the specific impacts of plastic waste was beyond our study scope. However, the committee determined that we have yet an incomplete picture of the fate of plastics in marine life, including the residence time, potential digestive degradation and the excretion rates. Next slide, please. We also note that there are other impacts beyond those two marine life, including societal impacts, some of which are listed here, economic impacts, there are social equity issues associated with plastic waste, watershed and food wet contamination, and human health concerns. Again, these were mostly beyond the scope of the report, but they do warrant mentioning. Next slide, please. So a theme that you will find throughout the report is that regular standardized and systematic data collection is needed for many aims. First, to understand the extent of plastic waste in the environment, also to develop effective interventions and to evaluate progress in reducing plastic waste through those interventions. To date, these data are extremely limited and in some cases absent, leading to many knowledge gaps. Therefore, we identify the need for an integrated tracking and monitoring system. Next slide. If in the United States leaked plastics were regulated as a pollutant under environmental law, tracking and monitoring of sources of plastic waste could likely be required. But presently, this is not the case. As such, no national scale monitoring system or system of systems currently exist to track important sources, pathways and sinks of plastic waste to the ocean at the current scale of public or governmental concern. Therefore, we have no baseline and no way to track changes from such a baseline over time in response to either action or to no action. Next slide. So here we describe a framework for a national marine debris tracking and monitoring system or system of systems. The committee would first like to recognize the marine debris tracking and monitoring conducted to date by NOAA, especially by the marine debris program and the marine debris monitoring and assessment project or MDMAP and other efforts spanning multiple NOAA line offices. This figure depicts the recommended components of a national marine debris tracking and monitoring network which would consist of both research-based and community-based initiatives, supplemented and supported by large-scale monitoring by emerging technologies including remote sensing methods. Integrated databases and data visualizations, such as this example showed from the MDMAP, would enable a more comprehensive understanding of plastic pollution in the United States, which is critical to informing actions towards plastic pollution reduction. To date, the absence of a cohesive system of systems has prevented the integration of disparate and sometimes granular datasets into a meaningful hole. Thus, one of our recommendations is for this cohesive system. And we suggest that federal agencies with mandates over coastal inland waters establish new or enhanced existing plastic pollution monitoring programs for environments within their programs and that there be enhanced coordination across agencies. Such a cohesive system would necessarily build upon the work conducted to date by NOAA and other entities. With that, I am going to close and hand back to Margaret. Thanks, Kara. We'll go to the next slide. In this report, the committee concluded that without modifications to current practices in the United States and worldwide, plastics will continue to accumulate in the environment, particularly the ocean, with adverse consequences for ecosystems and society. Next. Yes, there are opportunities for action to address plastic waste. The story of plastics is not a foregone conclusion, and there are many ways to address this prevalent and pressing problem. The committee observed some many important themes in our review. First was the need and ability to act without perfect knowledge. Next, the need for a systemic approach involving actions across multiple institutions. Third was the need for government and industry standard goals, criteria and rules to spur and support action. And the need of an opportunity to deploy economic instruments to incentivize change. In fact, addressing the plastic waste also provides a multitude of other co-benefits, including social and environmental equity, greenhouse gas emission reduction, technological innovation, and economic opportunities. Next. So, going back to our recommendation, our final recommendation, the U.S. can and should take systematic action or intervention in each of the six stages across the plastic life cycle from plastic production to recapture plastic in the ocean. Such an approach would help avoid the current mismatch between the sources and production of plastic products and the waste and management systems charged with dealing with them. Next. So, I thought it would be helpful to walk through what happens at each of these stages. Again, this is, action has to occur at every stage, not just one. So, at the production stage, we could reduce the amount of plastic produced and help decrease waste and stream management needs. For example, that could mean reducing the production of plastics that are not reusable or practically recyclable. Next. At the material and product design stage, innovation can develop substitutes that are reusable, more easily recycled or that biodegrade using principles like green chemistry or green engineering. A focus here could be those items most likely to become waste and leak into the environment. At the third stage, at the waste generation stage, the intervention would focus on reducing how much waste we generate by reducing use of plastic products with short disposable use periods as in many single use applications or disposable applications. These can include product limits and targets for recycling and reuse of such products or materials. At the fourth stage, the waste management stage, which we heard a lot about, interventions would focus on improving solid and other waste infrastructure, including leakage, control and accounting. This could include efforts to increase collection of plastic waste or improve recycling, waste isolation, capture or treatment to avoid leakage. At the stage where plastic is in the environment already, actions can include recapturing the waste from ground litter, stormwater or directly from waters where it accumulates, such as beach cleanup, or even after plastic waste enters the open ocean. But these tend to be expensive and particularly that's the case for at sea recovery, which can also be inefficient and impractical given the large scales involved and fragmentation of plastics into microplastics. And finally, dealing with plastic discharge to the ocean, the final intervention stage focus on reducing those direct intentional and unintentional discharges from vessels, point sources or platforms. These include actions that are governed under many specific legislation, including ocean vessel pollution laws and treaties, such as the act to prevent pollution from ships. So next, there are opportunities for many stakeholders across this interventions framework. This is an all of the above strategy with everyone needs to be involved. And while multiple groups will need to coordinate across a national strategy, national and state governments have critical organizing and motivating and implementation roles at all stages. The committee recognizes that the US has taken many action in many of these categories. I don't want to suggest that we haven't, but we haven't taken action at all and there might be more to do in each. And so a coordinated and systematic approach would be most effective. And I'll point you to Appendix C in our report, which details the existing US legal authorities related to marine degree of plastic pollution, including the existing regulatory requirements. I'd like to particularly recognize Mary Ellen Turnies and Scott Fulton's expertise to lawyers who spoke to us on environmental law, which was critical to developing this appendix. The US federal interventions we have documented focus on largely stages three to six, cleanup and local waste management, which still cannot stem the leakage because of the large volume of flow relative to available resources. But interventions will also be acquired in the earlier stages, production, material and product design, and improving waste management in order to equitably distribute the cost and enable more effective and cost-effective, efficient interventions. And there are also opportunities to learn from others. States and local jurisdictions have been operating as US policy laboratories, especially for early stage interventions, and other nations have been piloting approaches for systemic actions, and these include the EU, Canada, and even the UK. And those are both all discussed in the report. So next. So again, coming back to this final strategy, the US should create a systemic, coherent, comprehensive, and cross-cutting federal research and policy strategy, not just policy and not just research, but both, by the end of 2022 with a review of effectiveness by the end of 2025. And we recommend that this strategy be developed at a high level with a group of experts or an external advisory body. A systemic approach like this will add value to the work already being done. It could better organize actions across the range of federal agencies and programs, as well as non-federal actors. It can build on the existing legal authorities and expert agency efforts that we reviewed. It could adopt new models being tested. It could fill gaps that we identified in the report, such as establishing goals for reducing plastic waste, creating economic incentives for improving plastic manufacturing reduction through use and recycling, reducing the leaks in the US waste and pollution system so we can prevent the plastic from entering our environment, and addressing funding gaps and reversing inequitable cost burdens. Such a strategy we feel would enhance US leadership in creating solutions to global plastic pollution and shaping modern industrial plastic policy. And of course, successful implementation requires cross sectoral collaboration, the funding, monitoring and research that we discussed. And but I also want to emphasize public outreach and data transparency. Those are things that we, as a committee thought were important to. So next, so that concludes our presentation. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We've been able to provide a really high level overview of a very rich and complex topic. And you'll find much more detail in the report as you review it over the next week. We're happy to respond to your questions at this time. Thanks so much. Well, thank you both so much for that presentation. As Margaret said, we will now open up to questions. And I'll just note for those of you who have asked in the Q&A so far, yes, this webinar will be recorded and it will be available on the National Academy's website in the coming weeks. So you can access it there. As a reminder, since we're taking questions now to submit a question, just type it in the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. And I'll note that we also have some additional members of the committee joining us as well. So just a reminder to those committee members, if you're answering a question to quickly say your name and title, so the audience knows who you are. All right, our first question today is leakage of plastic waste before it enters the waste stream. Primarily a problem at the individual level or is it at the institutional level? Well, I'm going to turn this over probably to Jenna, but essentially it's just a systemic issue. Yes, there's things we can do individually and we all are doing that. Many of us are learning every day different ways of addressing this issue. But it is entirely a large, we have a large waste management system. It's very decentralized. So yes, a lot of this occurs at the local level and at the personal level. But the system is only as good as the system that it's feeding into. And so a national approach and some directions and goals and targets will be super helpful. So I'll turn the rest over to Jenna because I think she's got some really excellent experience answering this question. Thanks, Margaret. Yep, I'm Jenna Janbeck from the University of Georgia on the committee. And well, I think it's actually a short answer to follow you up. The short answer is we don't know the answer to this question. But it is definitely a complex relationship between what an individual does in the context that they are in, which is driven by the institutions that are around them, government, private sector as well. So this is why we need more information in this space. Thank you both. Our next question, and I think you touched on this a bit in the presentation, but I think the audience is curious for a few more details. What is your vision for reducing plastic production, your ideal actions to start this? Well, I think that plastic production, what we're finding is the plastic we're producing can't be managed to end of life successfully. So I think an ideal vision would be if there's plastic production, it should be a plastic that only plastic that can be fully reutilized in the system, which is not a place we're in today. And so I think that would be the ideal. So what you're seeing other countries do is trying to reduce the production or the sale of certain types of products that are not reusable or recyclable or looking for substitutes. And so maybe I'll ask Karen might have a thought on that as well because she's done a lot of interesting work in the area. Yeah, thanks, Margaret. I think, you know, one thing to keep in mind is that that we were asked to recommend sort of potential actions. And our task was not really to recommend specific actions. So we really identified a framework, a menu of options that we could take to address the problem. And I don't think there's too much argument that one of the sort of most efficient ways to deal with the problem to be have would be to have less of it. So if we make less plastic, there's simply less that we have to manage and they could potentially leak into the environment. But those decisions about what to cut out or what to stop making I think are really challenging and require careful thought and consideration that extended beyond the scope of the report. Thank you for that additional information. Our next question is, does your report recommend or talk about developing programs to track plastics after they enter the environment or the ocean? Yes, we do. We have two recommendations and they are relating to tracking and monitoring. And that's chapter six. And to date, there is a lot of interest and a lot of work being done in tracking plastic waste in the environment, but not enough. And certainly the environment extends to land. And so I will see if I can ask Michelle Gerak to walk us through what that recommendation is because she has a lot of experience with this and was really the lead author of that chapter. Hi, all. Michelle Gerak from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It's a very active area of research with respect to what kind of in-situ sensing we could be doing to looking at physically within the open ocean or once it actually enters into the waterways, let's say, as well as modeling. And a big one, too, is remote sensing. So remote sensing being you can use it on different platforms, whether it's unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft, or even spaceborne. And there's a variety of sensors that are actively being pursued right now to see the feasibility for detection of plastics, largely more so macro plastics, but micro plastics could be detected right now through in-situ type methods. So it's a very active area right now. There's a few publications that are out there, and the wealth of knowledge just keeps continuing. So I think such an integrated marine debris observing system is being discussed. There was an Ocean Ops 19 paper by Nikolai Maksimenko, who's on the phone of 2019, who sort of talked about this integrated approach of which could be applied to the open ocean as well. But a lot of this right now is sort of emerging technologies, and we'll be the focus of a lot more research to come. And Cara, maybe you might want to add something there just because you, I think, been a huge measure of plastic in the ocean yourself. Well, I can't take credit for that. It's our C-semester students who sail on ships like the one behind me that have routinely collected plastics in our plankton nets for decades. But I think the value of that data set is a really nice demonstration of the ability to even understand where micro plastics are accumulating in the ocean right now. Since the 1980s, our scientists at SEA have known on particular cruise tracks where we were certainly going to encounter plastics, and that information has been very valuable. So I think it's examples like these that illustrate the need for a tracking and monitoring system. And I think there's a tremendous amount of innovation happening, not just with ocean technologies, but also potentially thinking about ways to tag materials to find out where they're ending up after use. And we go into a little bit on that in the report. And I'll maybe ask, Jenna, say something about range of retractor because I think that's a new kind of model for how we might, people might be involved. Sure. Thanks, Margaret. Definitely, I think community-based efforts have been a part of data collection on this topic for many years. The International Coastal Cleanup, for example, has been around the Ocean Conservancy running that for over 35 years. Most recently, I think, it's mobile apps. So Marine Debris Tracker, which we developed here at the University of Georgia in partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris program, has allowed sort of for a scale and speed of data collection that we didn't have before able to react to that data very quickly as opposed to when there were cards and data had to be entered and then into spreadsheets and reactions. So I think our reaction time and decision-making based upon this data coming in has been sped up and become more nimble. Wonderful. Well, thank you all. Our next question is in a similar vein. In considering the U.S.'s specific role in this issue, how do you quantify plastics produced overseas for U.S. consumption as well as plastic waste shipped outside of the U.S. after its use? I'm going to open that up to whoever wants to answer that. I was going to turn to you, Kira. Yeah, I can start with that one. So we relied on the United Nations Comtrade Database to look at trade of both products and waste. And I was trying to allude to this in the presentation. It's extremely challenging to track the flows of these materials globally because the data in that database are coded according to product categories, for example. So I think there were millions of product categories that flow in and out of the United States. Waste is a little bit easier to pull out of the database because it is categorized as plastic scrap. And so in some work that we published last year, we were able to estimate the amount of plastic scrap being exported by the United States abroad. And that study was based on the year 2016. And we can continue year after year to look at those values and how they've changed in response to different changes in international regulations, for example. So we did rely on this Comtrade Database. Anyone else want to add to that? Just want to make sure. All right. Thank you both. Next one is, can you say more about the development of next-generation materials to make plastic more recyclable? What would this look like? And a similar question that is in the same area of the report is, does the report address or talk about the environmental life cycle of alternatives to single-use plastics? Are bioplastics better? So could you talk a little bit more about what the report has to say about alternatives? A great compound question. Really interesting topic. Maybe for the first I'd go to Jenna on the, but I'd go between Jenna and Kara. I'm not sure if there's anyone else who would like to jump in on that, but it's a really interesting topic. Sure. I can start and then Kara, you can follow up. So next-gen materials to make it more recyclable. I think thinking more about product design and really this report, you know, the committee felt that designing for end of life. So working, I'm an environmental engineer working in solid waste management. And the thing is, is that there's such a variety of colors and additives and shapes and, you know, plastic can be rigid or soft and film. And so that's really been the challenge around managing the material itself and recycling. And so honestly thinking about those components that are challenging to the red cycle stream and then changing those, having economy of scale actually too. So do we need such a variety of items? And if they were more consistent, that's really what starts to get at making something more recyclable. And then it has more value. So I think in that vein, that's what we need to think about. In terms of alternative materials and life cycle, that was outside of the scope of this report. Again, thinking about that end of life and products as we develop new materials. Do we have the infrastructure? We need to match our infrastructure with what we're putting in the marketplace and make sure that we don't have a mismatch because that's how we ended up in the situation that we are right now. What was the second part of the question, Megan, because I think we were, that was the other part of it. Yeah, the second part of it is, have you looked at the environmental life cycle of alternatives to single use plastics? Are bioplastics any better? I'll just, can I pick up Margaret? So I would say we could probably have an hour-long presentation on new materials, including bioplastics, biodegradable plastics, compostable plastics. And we do touch on these in the report. But as Jenna said, a comprehensive life cycle analysis was beyond our scope. And there are others that work on this sort of in their everyday work. So yes, I think in short, we need to be investing in research and development, starting with chemical engineers and materials scientists, as Jenna said, talking with product manufacturers and bringing in not only environmental engineers, but those people on the ground managing solid waste. Because we need to have this really coherent and collaboration to make sure that what is being designed not only needs application functions, but also can be then recycled, recovered for maximum value at the end of life. So we do try to make that point strongly at a high level, but there is so much to unpack underneath that. Yeah, I encourage everyone to read that section of the report, because we have also a number of citations to a very helpful summaries of the situation, including by the National Academy, which we found quite interesting and helpful. And there's a lot of work going on in this area funded by government and by industry. Anyone else? There's no other thoughts on that one. We can get to our next question. But committee, please feel free to jump in if you have more to add on any of these. All right. Our next one is, how does the report address or reflect on the full impact of the life cycle of plastic, fossil fuels, and how it affects and harms human health, animal health, and indigenous people in other fence line communities across the country? Another compound question. Fantastic. Well, how can I impact that question? So yes, we do touch on that. Although the topics were not quite in the scope of the report, but in the introduction, you can read in the context for the problem, you actually do read a number of treatments of the question, which is the source material for plastic is between 99% from fossil fuels. And so there's a connection there. We also discussed the environmental justice and equity issues surrounding not only production, but also treatment of plastic waste all through its life cycle. So it's a very big topic, also not specifically in our statement of task. And then I would say that the human health issues, definitely not in the statement of task, but we definitely see we have some very interesting citations in there to sort of discuss the areas of inquiry right now, very active topic at the moment. And of course, there's concerns that we know about interference with ecosystem services and all sorts of services we get from the environment, including blue carbon potential for plastics to interfere with our ability to address climate change mitigation. So those are that's just a quick overview, but I might turn to Jenna on the environmental justice question because you've had some experience there. But I invite anyone on the committee to sort of speak to those issues and maybe Rashid also, I think Rashid will have a very good context. Also sad. I think that's a great answer, Margaret. And we, you know, there is a focus on that right now, both from the, I think the waste management side where it sort of been historically, but of course on the production side. So there is a nice call out box on equity and environmental justice issues that we're talking about citing of and in the, in the solid waste section, specifically, citing of landfill and other solid waste management sites and the issues around waste management. So I think that's all I'll add. And I know you called out Rashid, so I'm on it at the same time. Yeah, Rashid. And then let's start. That's Mary, because Mary will have a lot to say about the ecosystem. Yeah. So I'm Rashid Smila at the University of British Columbia, you know. So yeah. So you've tackled the question nicely actually. So the only thing I may add is the making mapping of the mismatch between cost and benefit, which, which is where the environmental justice and social justice issue comes in, right? So the plastic is produced somewhere is used to meet the utilities of some groups of people. And then the waste actually goes out and impacts animals and other people and other communities, right? So that mismatch is something economists actually are trying to nail down. Yeah. And that would help with this question if we're able to do that. Thank you. And Mary, maybe you can take, there's a nice discussion of ecosystem services and valuation and the report that I encourage you to read. And so Mary, can you speak about about the other impacts you have a lot of Thank you, Margaret. I'm Mary Donahue. I'm with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College program. And thank you for that question. And I'll just add a little bit on to the comments so far and echo that we have not adequately captured the true costs of environmental plastic in our economic models to date and that the costs to our ecosystems and the animals in them has yet to be fully, fully explored. And these include commercial species, other species of concern and species of cultural as well as commercial importance. And we were not asked in the statement of task to document an evaluative and exhaustive roster of impacts. That would be a tremendous study. And I'm sure many of the people on this webinar are scholars who have contributed to that body of literature. But we know that this is happening and we do touch upon several impacts in the distribution and phase chapter as well as the introduction. And I'm happy to answer any more specific questions with regard to particular facets of of those impacts. I'll just I'll just add one more thing. And I think it goes to the prior question. And I believe it was Galgani and Luis at 2021 study that looked at the effect of marine plastics on the ability of the environment to sequester carbon and serve as carbon sinks, as well as the impacts of marine plastic on the ability of zooplankton to photosynthesize. So I think the impacts we're just learning about all the impacts we don't know what they are all of what they all are yet. But there are a suite of very talented scholars pursuing that. Thank you, Mary. Excellent. Thank you all. Our next question is from an audience member who identifies themselves as a student at South Kitsap High School. And they're wondering what is the best approach for students who are currently in high school to make a difference on the ocean plastic waste issue? We didn't study that specifically. But from experience, I'm sure maybe Jenna would have a response. I know that I work in an organization where there are a lot of young people and they're very influential in how we think about what we're doing. So one of the things is to get involved in tracking. And I think Jenna can speak to that. But the other is to help people understand the problem and maybe some ways of addressing it. Jenna, you want to speak up? Sure. I'm guessing there's lots of committee members who've had, who've given talks and interacted with folks about what can be done. And this is not to burden you in high school. We need to be making change now as this generation. But I think, yeah, getting involved, you can participate in the science. So if you want to use Marine Dewey Tracker, you can participate in global science initiatives. Oftentimes, there's clubs at schools. I mean, students have a lot of power to communicate and make change. And a lot of change has happened in that role. And so I think that realizing that you can make change, whether it be at just your school in your community or around the world, I think you'll find like-minded people your age or look for like-minded people your age. And collectively, I think you can make a difference. I'll just put a plug in for aquariums and partnering with schools. That's just a general opportunity in your area. And Rashi- Yeah, just a quick addition. Similar to Jenna, I do a lot of talking at high schools and primary schools because I really believe they have a lot of power that they don't realize they have. They have some moral authority because they are going to live here, everything being equal, longer than us, all this, right? So they have that. One of the things I recommend to them is, look, just write to your congresswoman, just send them letter in your own hard right and let them and gather your colleagues and you do social media and all those. Those can be influential. I also just add that I think you've taken an excellent first step and even taking time out of your day to attend this webinar. And I would also encourage any young people interested in this problem is evidenced by the previous question, which I would have described as the whole enchilada. This really touches every part of society. And, you know, if you're a science person, there's so many different ways that you could get involved. If you're a social science person, there are ways to get involved. Economics, history, I mean, this is a rich, rich field. And that is, I think, one reason we think there's so much opportunity. And we're excited to hear that there are students like you who want to get involved. Anyone else I'm thinking, Michelle, you might have a thought there from NASA. Yeah, first off, just echoing, I think it's excellent that you're even here and that clearly you consider this a big problem and you want to do something about it. So just kudos to that overall, because you guys will be the ones that enact the change. Hopefully we can start it, but if you guys will be carrying it forward and being the carry ones with respect to the global Earth system. So from a NASA standpoint, there's a lot of things that can be done. And I think for any of these institutions that have been named, there's a lot of summer internships that could be had as well. If there were particular aspects of this problem that you're interested in, I think any of us would be willing to provide information on that type of activity, as well as just also noting with respect to NOAA, getting involved in some of the NOAA marine debris programs, beach cleanups, or even sponsoring some yourselves, you can come up with additional sites that you and your team or friends can go out and regularly go and make a difference and provide some of the necessary data that we need to really be understanding how much is occurring on our coastlines before it enters into the waterways. Yeah, and rivers and lakes, I think those are great. Go ahead. Margaret, can I jump in just to echo it? Just to echo what Michelle and Cara said, this field is so rich with material and topics to explore and you'll see it in the report. It's really comprehensive and impressive. Beach cleanups, river cleanups are the easiest gateway into a lifetime of work on this topic. So I would really encourage everyone to participate in that very simple step towards really not just helping with the problem on the ground, but learning more about what's out there and what we can do. And from there, we all have the opportunity to vote not just every November, but every day that we're taking out our wallets and making choices that can impact this problem across the range of impact. So just as you learn through beach cleanups, you will also learn to be more impactful in choices that you're making every day. Mary, I think you have your hand up. You want to speak to thank you, Evan. Great. Thank you, Margaret. Mary Donahue with the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College program. In addition to the opportunities that have been mentioned so far, I just wanted to come back to a comment that Margaret alluded to, which is that in addition to those of us on the coastline, whether you're on the coastline or not, the beach cleanups are wonderful, but we desperately need data and information from inland, far inland throughout the watersheds. And these data are going to be critical in shaping those interventions that we've talked about before the plastics enter the marine and coastal environment. And so I would encourage those in high school or other schools that to seek out not only opportunities along the coast, but to really help us with community and citizen science upstream. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Anyone else? I can't see everybody. Rashid here. Yeah. Yeah. So for the youth, the person who has a question, you can see you animated the committee more than any other question. It just shows how important you are. And so please keep it up to two quick ones. Number one, don't ever believe that you are too small to do anything or to start anything. You start small, you build it up, you will surprise the momentum you can put through. So that's the other one. Now, going back to the production, you know, there was an idea about reducing production. How to do this, you know, production, if you're thinking economically, it's a response to demand, right? So we are demanding things that then lead to more production of those things. And you have a lot of power in this. On my campus here, if you are a professor and you drive a big truck to campus, many of the students think you are simply down, actually. Because you have the money. But if you ride a bike to campus, you are a hero for the students, right? So helping us to make good choices. Somebody mentioned this is another way that you can really help us. You just say, dad, you cannot do this, you know, and they stop mom and so on. So you have lots of power. All grace to your elbows. Thank you. Great. Wonderful. Well, thank you all so much for addressing that last question. I think we have time for about one more. And that is, so if, you know, someone could wave a magic wand and tomorrow, all of your recommendations, lay down this report, could be adopted. We could have a national strategy in place by the end of 2022. What do you think the outlook would be for our oceans and our waterways in the next decade? Wow, that's a great question. Could you think about it? Can I take a pause? Anyone have an automatic dream sequence to bring forward because I love to think about that. I would love to be put out of business. I would love to be thinking about the next problem. So please, let's do it. Let's do it. And the thing about if the US gets this thing done the way you described it, the beauty of it is the US is quite influential, believe it or not. Those of us outside know this. So if the US does this well, many countries are going to replicate and copy. And so we'll get a really, really nice ocean with much less plastic than we have now. So just get it done, America, and we'll follow. Yes, I just echo that. As we said in the report, this is a great opportunity for the United States to take some much needed leadership in this area, both industrially as well as environmentally. And I would say that working at a place where we're highlighting the ocean and helping that people love it, that there's a moment where we can say to our guest mission accomplished and you were part of it. Wonderful. Well, thank you all very much for indulging that last question. We have so many wonderful ones that we didn't get to almost 60 questions from the audience, which is fantastic. And I'm sure that you will be hearing from the committee in the report more in the future. So unfortunately, that is all the time that we have for today though. Once you exit this webinar, you'll be redirected to our report page where you can download the report for free and in full. And so with that, I'd like to thank our speakers and thank you all again for joining us today.