Who doesn’t love a spring clean-up? After the winter, all kinds of things emerge from what was once snow-covered or dusted over with sand and salt. Homeowners work to remove dead leaves and downed branches, and street sweepers buzz down the streets, polishing up the road’s dingy edges ahead of summer. In addition to the natural debris, all kinds of items emerge that may have hibernated through the winter unnoticed — soda cans, shredded bits of paper and the usual assortment of plastic lids, cups, wrappers, etc. It’s easy to pick these items up from sidewalks and the edges of yards and roads. Harder, however, is to remove them once they have made it into the water.

Many groups around the world are working on solutions to reducing plastics in the ocean. The reasons for doing so aren’t just the unsightliness of ocean trash but also for the hazards some items pose to the health and safety of marine life. Some of these threats are obvious, like a turtle mistaking a plastic bag for a jellyfish. Other threats are less obvious, like the teeny bits of plastic, known as microplastics, that pepper ocean waters and are ingested by all kinds of organisms, including seafood-eating humans.

One group in Maine is working on some innovative solutions to reduce plastics in the marine environment. Researchers at the University of Maine are working with Maine Sea Grant on a project funded through the NOAA National Sea Grant Program focused on reducing marine debris by replacing plastic with sustainable materials from our forests and oceans and exploring reusable food packaging. The effort is supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and part of the $19 million in federal funding to address the problem of marine debris in coastal communities nationwide.

The Marine Debris Challenge project is structured to engage with diverse audiences, including partners from industry, waste management, hospitality, food processing, and others, and using this input to inform the research. Maine-based companies involved include Atlantic Sea Farms and Ready Seafood.

This coming week, on May 30, Maine Sea Grant will be hosting a public workshop to ask for feedback from a variety of stakeholders and the public about the alternatives for plastic packaging that University of Maine researchers are currently working to develop. It is the first public workshop held as a part of this project. While the event is public, it isn’t exactly local, as it is located at the University of Maine’s Orono campus. But it is also available via Zoom. The morning session is the one designed to gather public input and will be from 10-11:45 a.m. You can register at tiny.cc/69j7yz. The afternoon will be designed for researchers to workshop ideas and is not open to the public. For more information on these efforts, contact harsha.james@maine.edu.

If you aren’t able to attend, you can find more information about the project at tiny.cc/99j7yz. You can also make an impact every day by picking up any items you see and putting them in a proper trash or recycling container so they don’t end up in the ocean — no matter how far you are from the water. And stay tuned for some innovative solutions coming from Maine businesses and researchers to help reduce the impacts of plastics on our marine environment.

Susan Olcott is the director of operations at Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association.

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