Statement: New bill will tackle large threat posed by tiny plastics

An estimated ten trillion pellets enter oceans each year

WASHINGTON – Reps. Mike Levin, Mary Peltola and 40 other lawmakers, including Texas Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia, introduced the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act on Tuesday. Plastic pellets, also called nurdles, are often dumped by manufacturers or spilled during transport because they are small (about the size of a lentil), cheap and easily contaminated. Once in our waterways, it’s easy for animals to mistake them for food. If they eat enough plastic, they will feel full, stop eating real food and starve to death. The bill would ban discharges of plastic pellets from facilities or sources that make, use, package or transport them.

Clean water organizations and volunteers have documented pellet dumping and spills across Texas, with 2.4 million pellets collected by volunteers along Gulf beaches since 2018. In 2019, Texas shrimper and environmentalist Diane Wilson secured a record $50 million penalty against Formosa Plastics for illegal discharges of nurdles into the bays surrounding its Point Comfort, Texas plant. In 2022, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shelved their proposed rules to regulate nurdle pollution after lobbying by the chemical industry. 

In response to the new legislation, experts released the following statements:

Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said:

“Plastic pollution is everywhere, with millions of plastic pellets found along the Texas coast. When animals ingest this plastic, they can get sick and die. Despite this, shockingly, some companies still dump and spill large quantities of plastic pellets into our waterways. We need to stop plastic dumping and prioritize our health and the environment over the momentary convenience of single-use plastics. That’s why Congress must pass the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act.”

Diane Wilson, executive director of San Antonio Bay Estuarine Waterkeeper, said: 

“I have collected millions of nurdles and thousands of plastic powder samples from Texas bays and beaches, but  the onslaught of plastic pollution is constant. Chemical manufacturers have no idea of the amount of plastic in their discharges, so we don’t even know the true scale of the problem. With our state environmental agency bowing to political pressure and failing to act, our only hope is for Congress to act and protect our beaches and oceans from plastic pollution.”