Who is PLP?
What is our focus?
We investigate and prevent adverse impacts of litter and plastic pollution on:
• Natural Resources
• Wildlife
• Economy
• Public Health
• Quality of Life
How do we operate?
We operate within three primary working groups: Communication Strategy, Research, and Removal. Through these, we accomplish our mission through collaborating with our partners and carrying out projects related to our goals.
What do we do?
We bring together organizations, agencies, and other stakeholders from across the Houston-Galveston region to...
• Conduct research & needs assessment
• Prevent land & water-based debris
• Remove aquatic litter & marine debris
PLP Vision:
The Partners In Litter Prevention envision a region free from trash and plastic pollution that impacts our bayous, lakes and rivers that lead to Galveston Bay.
PLP Mission:
To investigate and prevent the adverse impacts of litter and plastic pollution on our natural resources, wildlife, economy, public health and our quality of life.
On average the citizens of Houston produce 6.2 lbs of solid waste per day
Plastic waste compromises about 13% of municipal solid waste in the U.S
If we do the math, each Houstonian produces 0.81 lbs of plastic waste per day
In 2015, there were 6,656,947 people in the Houston Metro area
Each day Houston could produce about
5,365,299 pounds of plastic and
1,958,407,200 pounds per year
(~ 979,200 tons)
Why worry about marine debris?
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Trash is ocean or land based
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Ocean Based Debris:
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80% of plastic in the ocean is from shorelines
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10% from fishing gear
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10% from boats and ships
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Land based debris:
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Urban and industrial waste sites
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Sewage and storm water outfalls
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Terrestrial litter transported by rivers or left by beach users
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Between 4.8 and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean in 2010 from people living within 50 kilometers of the coastline worldwide (Jambeck et al., 2015)
The oceans take in roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic in a typical year
This is the equivalent of finding five grocery bags full of plastic on every foot of coastline in the 192 countries examined in this one study
(Jambeck et al., 2015)
Data Sources:
Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., Perryman, M., Andrady, A., . . . Law, K. L. (2015). Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science, 347(6223), 768-771.
Keep Houston Beautiful. (2016). Keep Houston Beautiful. Retrieved from http://www.houstonbeautiful.org/recycle.html
Schupska, S. (2015). New Science paper calculates magnitude of plastic waste going into the ocean [Press release]
Sheavly, S. B. (2010). National Marine Debris Monitoring Program: Lessons Learned. Retrieved from Virginia Beach, VA:
U.S. Census Bureau. (2016). Four Texas Metro Areas Collectively Add More Than 400,000 People in the Last Year, Census Bureau Reports [Press release]. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-43.html