Plastic Pollution Action Team

Scope and Purpose

The Plastic Pollution Action Team (PPAT) seeks to reduce the presence and impacts of plastic pollution on the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed. The PPAT will begin to address this issue by overseeing research to determine the effects that microplastics have on the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. This will be accomplished by the following actions: 1) providing oversight to the development of preliminary ecological risk assessments (ERAs) of microplastics for one or more subwatersheds to the Chesapeake Bay, 2) using the results of the preliminary ERAs to develop a strategy that identifies and prioritizes gaps in information concerning the effects of microplastics pollution on the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem, highlighting future research questions that need to be answered, 3) present results from ERAs to the Management Board in order to guide future action on addressing plastic pollution, and 4) monitoring policy advances at the state and federal level that could potentially impact, advance or complement this work to inform the science strategy and to identify potential policy or management options that could be utilized for source reduction strategies.