Group works to keep storm drains clear of plastics
Group believes straws and bags originate with littering on land
More than 500 plastic bags and 160 drinking straws were found in three small streams that feed into Burnaby’s Deer Lake over the course of one month, says a eco-education society that set out to measure plastics entering local waterways.
Stream of Dreams Mural Society, the group behind the “fish on fences” school program, conducted the informal study between August and September, evaluating garbage snagged on logs and rocks along three separate 50-metre sections of water over several visits.
“We were amazed and horrified at the volume of plastics deposited into our streams,” program assistant Krystal Brennan said. “Every few days, we’d visit and find the plastic had accumulated again.”
The three streams were obscure and difficult to access, meaning it was unlikely people were deliberately tossing their trash into the water. More likely, the plastic had been discarded on the side of the road or sidewalk before washing into a storm drain and then into the waterways.
From there, some was caught and collected by Brennan during her experiment, while some likely continued downstream into Deer Lake, from which it could flow into Burnaby Lake, the Brunette River, the Fraser River, and finally, the ocean.
Aided by UV light, larger plastics eventually break down into microplastics, which have serious impacts on marine life.
“We wanted to know how much plastic makes its way into our waterways and oceans, so we looked for a way to measure it,” said Brennan.
With support from the City of Burnaby, the society conducted its study during a time when it would be least harmful to salmon. They noticed huge changes in the volume of plastic when it rained after a long dry spell. “We collected six pieces of plastic in one place on September 6. It rained the next day, and the next time we counted 70 pieces,” she said.
The society has started offering a workshop on storm drains and garbage to Burnaby schools. At one presentation, Brennan brought a bag of plastic pulled from a creek near the school. Among the garbage was several snack packages, many of them labelled peanut-free.
“Some of the older kids made the connection that the garbage could have come from the school,” she said.
Stream of Dreams offers families free litter pickers in exchange for sponsoring a local storm drain by regularly collecting garbage on their streets. The society is also encouraging the public to “sponsor a storm drain,” by using the hashtag #stormdraingarbage on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
“Every piece of plastic removed from streets is diverted from streams. If everyone made it a regular practice to clean up their neighbourhood, it would really help,” said Brennan.