Baton Rouge has a trash problem.
Researchers from the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative found in September that the amount of trash detected along the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge during a month-long survey would be equivalent to about 61 pieces of trash if placed along one city block.
Raising Canes and Sonic food wrappings, foam Smoothie King cups, and plastic cups were among the most common sources of pollution along the river.
In collaboration with the MRCTI, LSU College of Coast and Environment professor Mark Benfield is researching the flow of plastic waste down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico using GPS trackers, trash accumulation data, and testing the water for microplastics.
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic. They can range from the size of a grain of rice to microscopic. This makes them ingestible to a variety of animals and humans. Scientists’ understanding of the effects of microplastics on human health is still developing, but research on the ecological impacts so far are jarring.
A 2008 study in the journal of Environmental Science and Technology was one of the first to find that these tiny pieces of plastic don’t harmlessly pass through the body.
“The high concentration of plastic pollution along the Mississippi is leading to a number of ecological issues,” Benfield said.
Microplastics can bind with other pollutants, becoming a sponge of organic pollutants, which attract microbes giving the taste and smell of natural food, leading to small marine life consuming them.
This can disrupt reproductive systems, stunt growth, and cause liver or tissue damage.
Much of the plastic pollution in Baton Rouge found is single-use plastics, like water bottles and bags. These larger plastics can degrade over time and leave microplastics in the water and air, eventually making their way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Benfield’s research began in 2015 when he took measurements of the amount of microplastics in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We found just tons of microplastics,” Benfield said. “That part of the coast doesn’t have a high population density, so the likelihood they were originating from Louisiana was pretty remote. We realized we were in the plume of the Mississippi River, and so that was the logical candidate.”
Benfield published a paper based on this research and received funding from Louisiana Sea Grant to do a one-year study looking at microplastics in the Mississippi river between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
The results? Very high concentrations of plastics, which increased the further downriver they went.
“We have to reduce our utilization of plastics,” said Benfield. “The majority of plastics that we interact with are used for very transient activities. So, a water bottle that is gonna last 1,000 years potentially we use for five minutes or 10 minutes.”
Since 2018, MRCTI has been partnered with cities along the Mississippi River to reduce waste accumulation along the river. Baton Rouge is one of three cities that are piloting a new initiative that involves data collection. The other cities are St. Louis, Missouri and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Baton Rouge Mayor-President, Sharon Weston Broome, announced in April that Baton Rouge would be one of the first cities to partner with MRCTI to investigate pollution flow along the river.
“[Benfield] took me around Baton Rouge and showed me some canals where booms were set up and all the plastic that was collecting there,” said Jenny Wendt, Plastic Waste Reduction Campaign Manager for MRCTI. “I had never seen anything like it before.”
Using GPS devices inside water bottles, researchers were able to gauge how trash entered local watersheds.
Community members also participated in collecting data by standing on the bank of the river and using Debris Tracker, an online application developed for the MRCTI initiative by experts with the United Nations Environment Programme, National Geographic Society and University of Georgia.
Stormwater surges bring this plastic waste into the areas around the river too, a problem that led city-parish leaders to promote a $15-million stormwater division that would work to manage this issue.
Around LSU these surges result in plastic waste ending up in the LSU Campus Lakes.
LSU AgCenter professor Jeff Kuehny, who leads the Burden Museum and Gardens program, is working with the coalition to raise awareness. He has placed booms in three different water systems around Baton Rouge.
These booms act as nets, collecting any plastics that float into them. By collecting this plastic, he is able to measure the amount brought in by stormwater.
“This is a problem that can be solved but it’s going to take everybody working together – public and private sectors to remediate the litter and the flooding and especially through stormwater management programs,” Kuehny said.
