Trash Free Waters State and Local Strategies
On this page:
- Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris
- South Atlantic Strategy
- Trash Free Mystic River Strategy
- Trash Free Piscataqua Watershed Planning
Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris
- Project Champion: Numerous stakeholders in Puerto Rico, led by the Trash Free Waters Programs at EPA Headquarters and Region 2 and NOAA's Caribbean Marine Debris Program
- EPA Funding: Technical Assistance
- Project Period: 2023-2028
- EPA Point of Contact: Noemi Mercado, EPA HQ Trash Free Waters, Mercado.Noemi@epa.gov
Project Description
The 2023-2028 Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris was created through a voluntary, collaborative effort of sixty-one organizations. The Strategic Plan establishes a comprehensive framework for strategic actions to help reduce the impacts of aquatic debris on Puerto Rico and its coasts, people, and wildlife. Projects implementing the Strategic Plan will be tracked separately over time, with periodic meetings amongst the stakeholders to ensure timely and effective implementation.
View the Puerto Rico Strategic Plan to Reduce Aquatic Debris (pdf)
South Atlantic Strategy for Trash Free Waters
- Project Champion: Numerous stakeholders in the southeast
- EPA Funding: Technical assistance to EPA Region 4
- Project Period: 2021- ongoing
- EPA Point of Contact: Romell Nandi, EPA HQ Trash Free Waters, Nandi.Romell@epa.gov
Project Description
The South Atlantic Strategy (SAS) focuses on the south Atlantic region encompassing North Carolina, South Carolina, and the eastern regions of Georgia and Florida. This strategy document aims to help these four coastal states and their municipalities, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and concerned citizens work together to explore more effective ways to reduce the amount of aquatic trash, including microplastics, that enters their waterways. The strategy consists of six goals developed over the course of two months from dialogue among stakeholders during regional workshops. It also contains more than 70 actions, or potential project concepts, which can be implemented by local champions to help address the pollution problem in the south Atlantic.
View the South Atlantic Strategy for Trash Free Waters (pdf)
NEW! Also access the accompanying EPA SAS Funding Compendium (xlsx) which compiles known grants, funds, and searchable databases that could help support SAS project implementation. This resource is a living tool that will be updated periodically so be sure to check back for new opportunities.
South Atlantic Strategy Stakeholder Implementation Meeting Presentations
- South Atlantic Strategy Stakeholder Implementation Fall 2023 Meeting Presentation (pptx)
- South Atlantic Strategy Stakeholder Implementation Spring 2023 Meeting Presentation (pptx)
- South Atlantic Strategy Stakeholder Implementation Spring 2024 Meeting Presentation (pdf)
- South Atlantic Strategy Stakeholder Implementation Fall 2024 Meeting Presentation (pdf)
Trash Free Mystic River Strategy
- Project Champion: Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA)
- EPA Funding: Technical assistance to EPA Region 1
- Project Period: 2021
- EPA Point of Contact: Caitlyn Whittle, U.S. EPA Region 1, Whittle.Caitlyn@epa.gov
Project Description
EPA and the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA) held a series of educational and interactive workshops for stakeholders from the Mystic River Watershed (upstream of Boston, Massachusetts) to discuss how to reduce the harmful inflow of trash into the Mystic River. The goal of this initiative was to develop several agreed-upon project concepts or shared strategies to addressing trash in the watershed. Workshops included high-level context on the issue and examples of successful trash abatement case studies and pilot projects from within and outside the watershed. Dozens of municipal staff, community leaders, representatives of nonprofits, and volunteers local to the Mystic River watershed attended the meetings. Project partners agreed upon three promising project ideas coming out of the workshops, which were later expanded upon by MyRWA. The below document outlines key discussion themes and meeting notes from the three stakeholder sessions as well as considerations for planning and implementing the three resulting watershed-wide projects.
View the Trash Free Mystic River Watershed Community Engagement Report (pdf)
Successes
MyWRA was selected as a recipient of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s MS4 (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System) Muncipal Assistance 2021 Grant Program and will be awarded over $30,000 to implement a stormdrain stewardship program in the Mystic Watershed. Officials from 13 local municipalities expressed their support for the project and have indicated interest in helping expand the program to their communities. The project will include the creation of individual Adopt-a-Drain web portals in each participating municipality, marketing and outreach to help publicize the project and educate residents on stormwater management issues, and evaluation and maintenance of municipal databases and a watershed-wide map. MyWRA continues to pursue funding for the additional projects identified through the Trash Free Mystic community engagement initiative.
Trash Free Piscataqua Watershed Planning
- Project Champion: Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP)
- EPA Funding: Technical assistance
- Project Period: 2017-2018
- Point of Contact: Abigail Lyon, Community Technical Assistance Program Manager at PREP, Abigail.Lyon@unh.edu
Project Description
The Piscataqua Region watershed encompasses 1,086 square miles and includes 42 communities in New Hampshire and 10 in Maine. Fortunately, there are many conservation and stewardship organizations actively engaged in reducing and removing debris in the watershed. Some groups, like the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation, have been cleaning beaches in New Hampshire and southern Maine since 2001. At the time of this project, various river advisory committees, the Piscataqua Region Estuaries Partnership (PREP), and the Conservation Law Foundation also expressed concern about the debris along our estuaries and freshwater tributaries.
Trash Free Piscataqua was born from a conversation between senior leadership from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. Both organizations recognized a need to reduce the flow of trash in the Piscataqua River which separates New Hampshire and Maine. Thanks to support from the American Chemistry Council, a neutral facilitator was asked to design and guide a collaborative process to develop a short list of projects endorsed by the full range of area stakeholders.
Successes
Individuals and small groups were interviewed in late 2017 about policies, programs, technologies, and other efforts to control the flow of debris in the region. They represented government, conservation and stewardship groups, academia, and others well respected for their efforts to improve water quality. Through nearly 40 structured conversations, it became apparent that three waste streams were of greatest concern to local and regional leadership: 1) single use plastics, 2) derelict fishing gear, and 3) pet waste (in “disposable” baggies).
Trash Free Piscataqua served as an opportunity to better coordinate among existing partners and think creatively and strategically about how to move beyond trash cleanup and towards source reduction. This renewed interest in citizen action also refocused efforts from coastal remediation to an inland/upstream approach. Since those initial conversations, project partners have worked to ideate project ideas and develop action plans and funding prospectus’s for addressing the above-noted priority waste streams and to keep them from entering our inland and coastal waters. In an effort to reduce the presence of single-use plastics in the environment (which had been partially attributed to open recycling containers), the Recycling Partnership supported the transition of three nearby towns from using 18-gallon open-air bins toward wheeled and covered 64 and 96-gallon carts.
View the Trash Free Piscataqua Project Prospectuses (pdf) for more insight on proposed project goals and actions.