Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be providing almost $2 million in funding to Portland State University to find ways to fight microplastic pollution in the state.
The funding — which comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that Merkley and Wyden helped pass in 2021 — comes at a time when Oregon, and much of the modern world, is riddled with microplastics, which are pieces of plastic smaller than five millimeters (about one-fifth of an inch) across.
Protecting the Oregon coast “from the threat of microplastics is a must,” Wyden said in a statement Friday. “I’m gratified that PSU has earned this federal investment to achieve that goal so coastal communities can keep generating jobs in tourism and preserving every part of Oregon’s 360-plus miles along the Pacific.”
Microplastics have been found in Oregon’s waterways, seafood and the air that Oregonians breathe, said PSU professor Elise Granek, one of the lead researchers on the newly funded project.
Many microplastics come from larger plastic products that break down, but some of the biggest offenders are plastic fibers in clothing that break down in the laundry and are released into the water through drains or blown into the air by dryer vents.
Granek said that the Portland metro area alone releases an estimated 4 billion particles of clothing microfibers into waterways each year; she added that those fibers are the most common microplastics found in fish.
PSU’s new project, Granek said, will collaborate with communities on the Oregon and Washington coasts to test ways to curb microplastic pollution from tourism.
She said the researchers will work with the Oregon Coast Visitors’ Association, hotels on the coast and other organizations to install various microplastic-filtering devices on washing machines, dryer vents and commercial dishwashers to stop the particles from entering the environment. The researchers will observe the microplastic levels in the area before and after the interventions, as well as in areas without microplastic-blocking devices to assess their effectiveness.
Failing to prevent microplastics from getting into the environment has dramatic impacts on both animal and human health, Granek said.
When marine animals accidentally eat microplastics in their environments, it can cause a false sense of feeling full, leading them to eat less and grow smaller, Granek explained. Research also suggests that some microplastics likely affect animals’ reproduction and may cause inflammation and other health issues.
But fish aren’t the only ones harmed by microplastics.
Granek said that studies in the last five years have found microplastics in human blood, lung tissue, breast milk, placentas and even heart tissue.
“We see effects of these microplastics on animals when we study them,” Granek said. “Many of the effects that we see in other organisms are likely translated into humans as well when they’re exposed.”
Granek and fellow researchers from the Oregon Sea Grant, Oregon State University and University of Washington have studied the impact of microplastics in the past, but this new research is different, she said.
“We can keep on studying and documenting the problem in more species and more places, but that doesn’t really solve the problem,” she said. “So we decided we really wanted to do a project that could start to get at some solutions.”
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