(styrofoam snaps) Oh!

(laughs) Polystyrene, also known by its trade name styrofoam, has always been a part of our lives, in packaging, in construction, as a container for our beverage, carryout from our favorite restaurants.

It's cheap, lightweight, moldable, and very convenient.

But (sighs) it's wreaking havoc on our environment.

The production of this material releases chemicals into the atmosphere, and the disposal of polystyrene is a mess for the environment as well.

Today, we are shining a light on polystyrene, what it's doing to the world around us, and how we can do better.

It's the subject of this episode of "Spotlight Earth."

(lighthearted music) Polystyrene was invented 185 years ago.

And for most of the time since, we have figured out more and more ways to utilize this synthetic polymer.

It is one of the most widely used plastics, with several million tons produced each year.

But recently, we've started to rethink that.

(soft music) Elly Boehmer Wilson is the state director at Environment Virginia, where she develops environmental policy and lobbies for the environment.

Polystyrene is a huge part of that.

We caught up with her to find out why this is such a problematic product.

Polystyrene is really one of the worst types of single-use plastics.

It is bad for the environment from the moment it is taken from the ground to the moment you're done with it.

Production of polystyrene is highly polluting.

It is made of a lot of different chemicals and oil or petroleum.

So the process of actually extracting those fossil fuels from our earth is a polluting process.

And then the actual production of it ends up with a lot of emissions as well as harmful toxic waste.

Polystyrene does not decompose, it doesn't break down, and it can't be recycled, so every bit of it that's been made in the history of time is still on this planet.

That's a problem.

One of the reasons that it's so popular is it is cheap to produce and it is lightweight, so you can ship it everywhere.

And with that comes the fact that it just ends up everywhere.

The lightweight nature of it means it's more likely to end up as litter.

It breaks down into little pieces, and so that is in our water supply, but it's also in our food chain.

So when you're fishing off the shore, your catch could actually have plastic still in them, and then that's a way for you to ingest it as well.

So there you go.

You can see why it's such a problem.

Elly will be back a bit later on in the episode with some tips on what we as citizens can do to reduce the amount of polystyrene pollution.

But first, with an even deeper dive into the issue, let's connect with my "Spotlight Earth" co-host Jarrell in Gloucester Point, where important research is being done to learn more about this material and how it's adversely affecting wildlife.

Thanks, Hales.

Yep, I'm at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and today we have a special guest, Dr. Robert Hale.

(light music) Tell us about your work as it relates to polystyrene.

So, polystyrene is interesting.

It's just one of many plastic types out there and it's very cheap to make, it's made out of fossil fuel precursors, basically.

And we use it in things like disposable cups, packing material and the like.

And so it's one of the many plastics and microplastics that we examine in environmental samples.

So we did a fish study where we made microplastics out of polystyrene, and we also made it out of nylon fibers.

Okay.

And we made it out of Spartina seagrass.

And what we did is we exposed fish to each one of these polymer types, with and without the co-exposure to a virus because we wanted to see whether there was an interaction between a virus and plastics because no one had done that before.

Little small rainbow trout, and we exposed them in this big aquarium setup there to these different types of plastics and to the virus for about 30 days, and then we looked at what the effects on the fish were.

What we saw with the polystyrene and the virus together, mortality in the fish went from basically 0 to 40%.

Even more interesting, when they were exposed to the nylon fiber, it went to about 80%.

So we recently published that research in the paper here.

One of my graduate students, who's now a professor at VIMS, is the first author on that.

Wow.

And that's kind of the little curve you see here of the different types of plastics and what their effects were.

The effects on small organisms are likely to be similar to what they are in large organisms.

They are the fundamental bases of the food chain.

So you unfortunately can lose a few whales and the ecosystem survives.

But if you eliminate those lower levels of the ecosystem, then everything else collapses down on it.

So while they're not as charismatic, they may be even more important to the ecosystem.

Based on your research, what are some of the things that we need to do to alleviate some of these things?

Well, first and foremost, we have to better understand what plastics are.

Within the plastics themselves, there are different forms of plastic.

So we have, you know, plastic bottles, but we also have plastic fibers.

And one of the things we saw in this experiment was that the fiber's a lot bigger impact on the fish.

And we think that might have been kind of an irritation to the gills- Right.

Which allowed the virus to enter the organism.

So form is very important, and size is very important because the smaller the particle is, the more mobile it is.

And then there's the polymer composition itself, that's critical.

And then something that I'm heavily involved in are the chemicals that we put into the plastic to alter their properties.

Right.

So things like flame retardants.

Yeah.

And so it's this kind of multi-headed beast that we have to try to understand.

(soft music) So that's the story from the lab.

But this issue is also being felt in the kitchens of your favorite restaurants.

(bright music) Cold Pressed's vibe is positive energy.

For sustainability, we are passionate about making sure that we have the option for people to be able to be a part of the solution.

As a small business and as a business owner, styrofoam is a economical option.

But when you look at the damage and the destruction that it does for the environment, you have to weigh out the two.

So let's eliminate the styrofoam because we see this as something that's very destructive.

It may cost us a little bit more on the back end, but for the future, the investment is worth it to us.

In this society, you have to make it make sense money-wise for it to be able to to work.

We like to do our part as best we can to prevent, even if it's one cup from going into a landfill.

And we introduced the Huskee program as an initiative to try to mitigate some of that waste.

We have six locations, and obviously that would be a lot of paper and plastic cups going out.

The company partnered with HuskeeCup.

They take the coffee husk and they use a biopolymer, so it's a natural polymer, and they started compressing it into these cups.

We take them from the customers and refill them so that the customers aren't using paper and plastic cups.

Thinking about our bigger picture initiatives and our goals, we wanna leave a legacy where we're trying to do our best to make sure that we're leaving the world in a better place.

Everybody needs to take some kind of ownership for it at some point.

So as you can see, a very serious problem, but people are working on solutions.

Let's head back to Hales in the studio with more ideas and things you can do to help reduce the amount of polystyrene in the environment.

Thanks, Jarrell.

Yes, this is a huge issue and a problem we don't begin to solve until all of us recognize it and work to fix it.

So we're bringing back Elly Boehmer Wilson to talk about how we as consumers and as environmental stewards can begin to make a dent in the problem that is polystyrene pollution.

Everybody has a role that they can play in reducing this harmful type of single-use plastic.

I think the first thing people can do is not use it.

If you have another option, use that option, particularly if you can find something that is recyclable in your area or that is compostable and will break down if it ends up in the landfill or the environment.

People can also get involved by letting their decision-makers know that they support action on plastic pollution.

Our legislators, you know, work for us.

And so by letting them know where you stand, that allows them to support policies that protect our environment and reduce plastic in our environment.

Sage advice.

Hope we can all heed it and work to eliminate harmful chemicals from the environment.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time on "Spotlight Earth."

(gentle music) (gentle music fades)