- Hi there, I'm Frank Graff.

Plastics are everywhere.

Unfortunately, so is plastic waste.

It's in the environment and it's in us.

What to do about plastic?

And we'll visit a North Carolina company creating an alternative to plastic.

It's all next on "Sci NC."

[somber music] - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

[somber music continues] [somber music continues] - Hi again and welcome to "Sci NC."

You know, plastics are a part of modern life.

In fact, just look at our set.

Almost half the items have some kind of plastic.

In fact, there are several different types of plastic, and it's all based on their chemical structure.

It includes acrylics, polyesters, silicones, polyethylenes, and polyvinyl chlorides.

Those structures are what make plastic so versatile and why plastic plays a crucial role in our daily lives.

But, as producer Evan Howell shows us, plastic waste and microplastics are everywhere.

[dramatic music] - [Evan] Georgia Busch takes littering on the beach personally.

- [Georgia] It's not my trash, but it's my planet.

- [Evan] And she wanted to get a better idea about where it was coming from, so she and her colleagues enlisted the help of local volunteers and launched what was called the Hurricane Florence Marine Debris Recovery Project in 2018.

- After about two years of collecting marine debris, we discovered that almost 80% of the marine debris was residential docks and piers.

- [Evan] She says the debris from those broken off sections was everywhere, on the beaches and in the water in and around Wilmington.

And most of it: Styrofoam, which was the main source of flotation for these kinds of structures.

- Polystyrene, which is the chemical form of Styrofoam, and that Styrofoam component in the docks and piers can easily break apart, eventually becoming microplastics.

[dramatic music continues] - [Evan] The thing about microplastics is that they don't just vanish away.

The average lifespan of any piece of plastic is about 500 years.

What's made out of plastic?

More than you might imagine.

There's the obvious: the milk jugs, grocery bags.

But you might not realize that most clothing has plastic in it as well.

And chewing gum, yes, chewing gum.

- Yes, yeah, yes.

[laughing] - [Evan] From Busch's standpoint, nothing is disposable.

And she sees it every day at work, every time beachgoers are on vacation.

- It's a Shibumi tag.

[laughing] That's harsh.

[laughing] [somber music] - [Evan] Project volunteers were given a kit like this one to take samples and handed a cheat sheet to find these microplastics, which was a grid with spaces five millimeters in size.

Busch said it was a labor of love.

- So what I'm doing here is trying to get all of the sand sieved through while what remains will be our little microplastics.

And here is an excellent example of a piece of polystyrene.

You can see it's squishy and light and fluffy, and it will fly away, but that's a great example of the exact microplastics that we're targeting.

[dramatic music] And there it goes.

- [Evan] And that's just what washed up on the beach.

If we go from the beach and through the Mason Inlet, we get to the salt marshes.

It's here where Busch says the microplastics can be carried in from the ocean tides and onward.

She says the problem is that microplastics can get so small, they can get into the food supply of the fish and wildlife, and ultimately, into the food we, ourselves, eat.

And at the end of the day, she says it's not just coming from the beach.

- We got ourselves another piece of plastic there.

[glass clinking] Yeah, the coast is the ultimate downriver depository for anything that happens inland.

So upriver, in our inland freshwater rivers and streams, that's another place where we can attack microplastics and plastic pollution in general.

[dramatic music] - [Barbara] Wow what do we have here today?

Look at this, Jack.

- [Evan] Cue Barbara Doll, who's looking for those microplastics in those inland rivers and streams and who's documenting how things go from big to small.

- We believe a lotta the microplastics on the river are actually coming from trash that's being washed off urban and kinda suburban areas, getting into the stream.

So why do we wanna know that?

Because if we care about the microplastics and we wanna prevent it, we need to know the source.

[dramatic music continues] Perfect.

[water sloshing] - [Evan] Theirs is the first ever study on microplastics in North Carolina rivers and waterways.

The report cover the Neuse River Basin, the geographic range starting in the heavily urban Triangle and 200 miles down along the Neuse River and out to the Pamlico Sound.

They found that an estimated 230 billion pieces of microplastics are in the river and waterways of the Neuse River Basin, which flow east toward the Atlantic every year.

[dramatic music continues] Doll said it was important to go straight to one of the upriver areas where they took samples.

We met her in North Raleigh under a small bridge over the Marsh Creek.

She says a lot of what they found was exactly what Georgia Busch was finding on the beach.

[dramatic music continues] - And the most common microplastics that we found were the polystyrene, the polyethylene, the polypropylene, and the PET, which is like your plastic bottles.

So those were some of the most common things.

Well, lo and behold, when we looked at the macroplastics, Styrofoam was the most common item that we found.

92% of all the litter we collected was plastic.

[dramatic music] - [Georgia] Oh, look at that.

- [Evan] Remember that survey from Wrightsville Beach in measuring the five-millimeter samples?

Doll and her team measure things in what are called microns, really small, so they can determine the scope of what's getting into the river.

- They're kind of just breaking down into smaller and smaller plastics.

They're not really becoming their base elements.

They're just getting smaller and smaller particles over time.

So we wanted to test, how does that concentration change as you consider smaller and smaller particles?

That opening for that mesh is about half the size of a mechanical pencil lead.

And then, we use a much smaller one here.

This is the 64-micron mesh, which is openings about the size of the average human hair.

So the diameter of a human hair.

[dramatic music continues] - [Evan] Again, smaller and smaller, but not to nothing.

Up next was South Raleigh along the Neuse River at Anderson Point Park.

It was here and nearby Crabtree Creek where they brought out more netting to collect the samples they need to create a snapshot of where microplastics are coming from.

- We have little fish.

[laughing] Marsh Creek flows into Crabtree Creek, which then goes into the Neuse River.

The Neuse River itself is about 200 miles long, but you have thousands of miles of smaller tributaries and even backyard streams that drain into the Neuse.

So there's a whole river basin and a whole network of waterways that go into the river.

- [Evan] Doll says we're looking for solutions in the wrong places, that while municipalities laid down rules on stormwater drainage to stop macroplastics from getting into the water in the first place, not enough attention is being paid to, shall we say, the little things, the microplastics we've already put in the environment.

- These municipalities that have these stormwater permits would also have to manage for trash, because it is a pollutant in our waterways and it breaks down into these tiny fragments that are gonna flow on down the river and contaminate our food and cause other environmental consequences.

[dramatic music continues] - [Evan] Busch and her colleagues were able to get the data they needed to prove to a local beach town to use capsulated or protected polystyrene for their docks and piers.

And with that success, she says she still has hope that local and state officials will take a closer look at this invisible danger.

- [Georgia] Thinking about the life of any consumer product that we have in our hands, can it turn into microplastics and end up in the ocean, or can I make a better choice to begin with and not use any plastics at all?

[dramatic music continues] - [Narrator] You can watch more "Sci NC" episodes anytime on our website or through the PBS streaming app.

- The first synthetic plastic was Bakelite.

It was produced in 1907, and you could say that was the start of the plastics industry, although the industry didn't really take off until the 1950s.

Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says about 450 million metric tons of plastic was produced in 2019.

But every use of plastic, even [bag crinkling] opening a bag like this, creates microplastics.

And those microscopic pieces of plastic are found in the environment and in us.

And scientists want to understand just what that means.

[light music] You probably don't think about it, but plastics make our world, well, go.

And it's not just the plastic in a vehicle.

Almost everything in this bedroom contains some synthetic fibers.

From the fur on the teddy bear, to the book covering, to the bed sheets, and clothes.

Same is true in the kitchen.

Cooking utensils, food containers, dishes, all contain plastic.

Workplace, same thing.

There's so much plastic in our world, we take it for granted.

- Plastic is just about anywhere you can imagine, especially when we think about how small plastic can get.

- [Frank] But it turns out, when you use something made of plastic, microplastics break off.

- A microplastic is essentially a small piece of plastic.

It's smaller than five millimeters, which is the diameter of a pencil eraser tip.

So anything smaller than this is considered a microplastic.

Even the process of opening a chip bag has been shown to release microplastics, or the process of even cutting open a bag can release microplastics, or the process of opening the bottle cap is a process of releasing microplastics.

The clothes that we wear, the majority of them are made of synthetic plastics.

And so the moment that we wash those, those clothes, we can be releasing microplastic fibers.

- [Frank] Imari Walker-Franklin and the researchers at RTI International are finding microplastics everywhere.

- [Imari] Things like microplastics and nanoplastics are small enough to travel all over the world, whether through our air, within our waters, or even in things like our dirt or just in the bodies of other organisms.

[light music continues] - [Frank] And those bodies include people.

Yes, there are microplastics inside you.

- Just about anywhere that we look in the human body, we're finding microplastics.

We find it in human feces.

We find it in the placenta.

We can find it in the digestive tract.

We've found it in lung tissues.

We've even found that there is capability for nanoplastics, which is even smaller than a microplastic, to pass through the blood-brain barrier.

[dramatic music] Now, when we think about blood itself, we can find that nanoplastics are embedded in the veins or being transported in the blood.

[dramatic music continues] - [Frank] There are 10,000 different chemicals associated with plastics, either to make the plastic, protect the plastic, or give it special properties.

So the basic question is: What effect microplastics have on people?

- We can breathe in these microplastics.

We are eating these microplastics.

We're not really sure from the particle itself if there could be harm.

Some of these microplastics can have different morphologies, different shapes, sizes.

Some could be kinda jagged and cause, you know, physical impacts.

And then the other issue is that these plastics carry chemicals in them, and those chemicals can be released into the body.

And we don't really know if there's individual toxicity of those chemicals or even the mixture of those chemicals being released causing harm.

So for at least mechanical recycling, what they do is they usually wash the bottles out to get all the contamination out as much as possible.

And then they start to shred them into smaller pieces so that they can reheat them and mold them into a new plastic product.

So we caught them mid-recycling, and we just took those bags and then we put them on basically like a sieve.

Like you know if you take a, like if you go to the beach, when you like try to filter through the sand or you're gold mining.

We have some of those similar tools to get them into different sizes.

Because it really depends on the size where it ends up in the body.

[dramatic music continues] And then we're putting those into media that's used to feed human cells, human lung cells in particular.

And we wanna see: What are the effect of that leachate, of those particles, on the human lung cells?

All of these, the green, the yellow, and the white, they are the exact same plastic type.

These are high-density polyethylene.

But they were all just used for different products.

So it really speaks to the fact that you can have the same polymer type, but they can even physically look different because there's different chemicals placed inside them, like dyes and colorants used to make the plastic itself.

So we really wanted to see if those made a difference on the toxicity or the types of chemicals being released.

So in this study, we put them in extracts to analyze them on a mass spec to look at and identify new, emerging contaminates inside of the extracts.

- And so once you stir it around for a while, you're gonna take a look at the extract and see what has leached out basically?

- Exactly.

- [Frank] This is what microplastic pieces of tire rubble look like when they are placed onto human lung cells.

The darker, irregular shapes are the tire fragments.

The blue dye highlights healthy cells.

But watch what happens.

The green dye highlights cell death.

Just what is killing those cells is what researchers are trying to figure out.

[dramatic music] - These are things that need to be studied further to see if the chemical is driving the toxicity or if the particle is driving the toxicity.

- I do worry about our children.

I worry about the future generation.

Because plastic is not going away.

It takes hundreds to thousands of years.

We don't even know if they're gonna return to a state in which it's not gonna be harmful.

There's so many unknowns about the effects on human health.

[dramatic music continues] - [Imari] I think that there's still a lot of things that we need to figure out concerning, you know, what are the true impacts for plastics, you know?

Is it chronic exposure that's gonna be the problem?

Is it a certain concentration that's gonna, you know, cause, you know, even worse effects?

But you know, there are things that we can still do now to address plastic pollution itself, because microplastics come from plastics.

So we have to think about: Are we using plastics for the right reasons?

Are there unnecessary, avoidable, and problematic plastics that we can readjust and change, you know, our formulations or even alter to different material types?

Because plastics didn't exist until the '40s.

You know, we didn't live a life with plastics, you know, until very recently, you know, within the last few generations.

So while it's hard for us now to imagine a life without it, there was life without plastics.

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[no audio] While many plastics can be recycled, one of the solutions to the plastic problem must be to simply use less plastic.

Replace a plastic fork like this with an item that can be composted.

A company in North Carolina is working on that.

[light music] This all looks like boxes and pallets filled with plastic forks and knives and spoons.

But the utensils aren't made of plastic.

[light music continues] [machine whirring and clicking] [utensils clicking] - Now there's finally a viable alternative to plastic.

We're really excited to take this technology to market and for the everyday consumer to start seeing this in their, you know, restaurants that they eat at every day.

- [Frank] The spoon is made from a bioplastic resin.

It looks like plastic, bends like it also, and the ultimate test?

[machine clicking] - All right.

- All right.

This is focus group of one.

- Okay.

- Here's one of your forks.

- Put it to the test.

Let's see how it works.

- Just stop the line.

- Yep.

- Works.

- [Dillon] What do you think?

Very good?

- I like it.

I like it.

- All right.

Love it.

[laughing] - Yep, it works, just like plastic.

But the utensils are biodegradable.

They're made from plants.

[machine clicking] [machine whirring] [utensils clicking] - Plastic pollution is a massive issue.

[light music] Everyone knows about the environmental impacts of it for the most part, but a lotta people don't realize some of the health issues that are arising from microplastic pollution.

And that's something that really struck a chord with me and was a big reason that we wanted to find a solution.

And then, when we looked at the alternative landscape, there just weren't many, weren't really any alternatives that were actually a visible substitute for plastic, right?

So it makes sense why all these companies still use forks, knives, spoons that are made from plastic.

There's just not anything out there that's, you know, the same cost, the same quality, and is truly sustainable.

So we wanted to solve those three problems with our technology, and I believe that's what we've done.

[light music continues] - [Frank] Using plants to make plastic isn't a new idea.

But it hasn't caught on because the finished product wasn't as durable or flexible as plastic.

It also required a completely new manufacturing process, which was too expensive.

PlantSwitch found a way to make products using bioplastics with the same process used to make plastic products.

- I think if you're going to replace plastic, you know, you need to have something that can be used by people that are already making the products.

It's great to have a different material, but if then every fork manufacturer in the world has to go launch a new facility in order to make it, that's gonna make it a lot harder.

And so our technology was designed to be compatible with the existing plastic supply chains, and that's something that's really resonated with our customers, with other manufacturers.

[light music] - [Frank] That new technology is spread out across the Sanford warehouse.

PlantSwitch believes its processes can replace petroleum-based plastic with plant-based plastic.

- This, I think, really has a chance to move the needle in terms of converting plastic that's gonna be around for 1,000-plus years to something that's gonna be around for the order of months.

We're looking at a lot of applications, like cups and disposable coffee capsules, and these are things that a lot of our potential customers are looking at as well.

So there's a very kind of wide array of different final articles that could be made from this material.

[light music continues] [bright music] - [Frank] Bioplastic items are made from the unwanted and unused leftovers from food production, like corn and soybean stalks and wheat straw.

Those agricultural byproducts are ground up into a superfine powder and then put into a compounding process.

- Our compounding process is taking the cellulosic agricultural residues, and then we combine them with other natural bio-based polymers.

And what that does is it creates a raw material, which is this right here.

[machine whirring] This is strands of plasticized material, essentially, where again, we've taken these agricultural residues, combined it with some other bio-based polymers that anything on its own wouldn't work well, but when we blend it together through our proprietary process, it gives it the strength and the physical performance characteristics that are needed to make a good plastic part.

[bright music continues] This is called extrusion.

So this is done in traditional plastics for, you know, traditional plastic materials, and we're using it with bio-based materials.

So you get these long strands that go through this, and then it goes into a pelletizer where it's chopped up into the small little pellets.

[pellets clicking] And then they go to a mold where they're melted down.

[bright music continues] So they're melted down, they become liquid, they get shot into a mold.

[machine clicking] So if you have a fork, then it'll be a fork mold.

It fills it, presses it together, hardens it, and then out pops a piece.

[light music] - [Frank] The products are all compostable and will biodegrade in a few months.

- But you know, the unfortunate thing about eco-friendly products is there's always been that almost negative connotation of, "Well, this can't be as good as the original, right?"

And so that's something that we're fighting is saying, no, like, we have designed this to be as good as the original, but this is truly sustainable.

This is truly something that is compostable, biodegradable in all natural environments, right?

So it's an opportunity, because once people try it, they realize that this is, you know, the same quality, but it is, you have to get past that first initial reaction of, "Oh, you know, this is not gonna be as good."

[light music continues] - Now let's talk about art supplies, because those paints and markers are also chemically-based.

Producer Andrea Corona shows us how Duke University toxicologists keep us safe.

[bright music] - [Andrea] Little children put almost anything in their mouth.

It's one of the first ways they learn to interact with the world.

But sometimes, those items going into the mouth include crayons and other art supplies that could be toxic.

And that's where Dr. Chester Rodriguez comes in.

He's the director of the Duke Toxicology Program.

- Toxicology is the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms.

We are a small toxicology program, and we specialize in the evaluations of arts and craft consumer products.

Things like pencils, markers, glues, clays, et cetera, et cetera.

We are considered the gold standard in the evaluation of arts and crafts consumer products.

We are the primary toxicology provider for an organization known as ACMI.

ACMI stands for the Arts and Crafts Creative Material Institute.

And what they do is that they promote, you know, the safety of arts and craft consumer products through a certification program.

- [Andrea] Duke's toxicologists have been researching the toxins in arts and crafts since the 1980s.

It's so specialized and unique, the group screens products for countries around the world.

- The process actually starts with getting the confidential product formula.

You know, that means the chemical composition of the product.

So we get that.

You know, sometimes companies do not own directly the formula, so we have to work with their suppliers.

[light music] - Think baking cookies.

Just in reverse.

In the kitchen, raw ingredients are mixed together to make the final product, the cookies.

[oven clicking] In the Duke lab, toxicologists take the final product, the art supply, and break it down into the raw ingredients it's made from.

- We have to have the whole formula of the product.

You know, after that, the toxicologist will go in, and we have to make sure that we have safety information for each of the ingredients, whether they can act on their own or in combination.

And then the toxicologist will determine whether any labeling, any hazard labeling, will be required for the product.

You know, when I say hazard labeling, I mean things like, "Caution: This could irritate the eyes or the skin."

- [Andrea] Product testing takes as long as needed.

Some products must be recertified every few years.

- You know, for one thing, if we get new ingredients for which we don't know anything about, then that's gonna take more time, okay?

You also have product lines with many, many colors.

Each of those colors have to be tested for contaminants like lead.

One of the good things about ACMI certification is that they have a very robust, you know, lead testing program.

Lead is a common contaminant in a lot of pigments.

- [Andrea] The ACMI certifies products with two seals.

- One is called AP and stands for Approved Product, and the other one stands for CL, Cautionary Labeling.

AP means that the product is safe for the intended use.

You know, it could be a paint, it could be a marker, it could be a glue.

So AP products are safe for the intended use, and there are no warnings required for any acute or chronic health risks.

- [Andrea] In addition to testing ingredients' safety, Duke's researchers continue their work beyond the product.

- So we move the science forward.

We publish results, you know, in the scientific literature.

We're also a training ground for new toxicologists, right, so that the next generation of toxicologists will be trained with getting the confidential product formula.

You know, that means this type of work.

- [Andrea] And Dr. Rodriguez says he is reminded almost daily of how his research has made a difference.

- You know, you go to a restaurant with your child, your niece, or your nephew, and the first thing the server, you know, may bring you is crayons for the kids, right, to draw and pass the time so that you could have your meal in peace, [laughing] right?

You know, the presumed safety is something that it took a lotta years.

And I have to say that this program was instrumental in promoting the safety and regulations of these products.

[light music] [no audio] - [Narrator] Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you who invite you to join them in supporting PBS NC.

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