Ptolemy described an island in the Thames estuary called Counos that has long since disappeared beneath the waves, melted into the ancient mud. The shifting sands and endless flats of the estuary hide many secrets, each layered into the sediment by the passing of time and tide. What might a map or scan of the delta show today? Perhaps we could draw a map that showed our own impact, the difference we have made since the river transitioned into the post-industrial landscape we see now. It might tell us what was in the disused landfills that are dotted along the banks, the places where microplastics have accumulated, driven by water and wind. It might show us the layers of heavy metals deposited during the industrial revolution, under the layers of sewage sludge that used to be dumped there, and above that layers of polyester fibres from our washing machines. For 1,000 years or more London has been dumping its waste into the river where it slowly, with the motion of each tide, makes its way East and settles into the flatlands of the delta.
At Mucking on the north bank of the Thames is the site of an old landfill. Although currently under reclamation the site has been eroded by the tide and wind and is now spilling its contents into the river. Layers of flattened rubbish can be viewed and amongst them it only takes a few minutes to find a shard of mesh fabric, frayed heavily and now easy to pull apart, but still with that stretch that made nylon so popular. Other landfill sites along the river like Two Tree Island were used for the infamous 'co-disposal' where industrial and chemical waste was poured into trenches dug by a backhoe into the household waste. In the 1980's, the now massive landfill site at Pitsea was seen to emit a green gas (Chlorine) by the locals and was prone to spontaneous combustion. In Great Barr, Birmingham, large pockets of methane have formed at a former landfill site, resulting in the area being closed for 20 years while the volatile gas disperses.
The unknown chemical reactions and biological processes hidden under the landfills and mud may yet bring forth surprises of a more useful kind. In 2016 researchers in Japan discovered, in the sediment outside a bottle recycling plant, a new bacterium that seemed to be living on plastic bottles. Further investigation revealed that the bacteria, which they named Ideonella sakaiensis 201-F6, may have evolved enzymes capable of breaking down a type of polyester called PET used to make clothes and drink bottles. However, the bacteria was not working fast enough to make a commercial PET digestion method viable. Since 2016 researchers from around the world have collaborated on identifying the key enzymes used by the bacteria and they now believe they have a method can that can shorten the time it takes to break down PET from hundreds of years to days.
Although these enzymes may seem like they could be our saviour, the reality is that it could take decades to build the infrastructure necessary to process all the plastic waste we are producing. While it's still much cheaper to bury plastic waste all in a large hole, burn it or spread it on our farmland, we have to accept that change will be slow.
So that leaves us, and probably the next generation at least, stuck in world of our own plastic waste. And while we wait for governments, utilities, industry and science to bring about change is there anything we can do? In the short term if you want to minimise the impact your washing machine has on local waterways these guidelines are a simple place to start.
There also campaign and cleanup groups whom you can support (many of whom are linked in these pages), technical devices such as microfibre filters that that can be added to your washing machines and local MP's you can write to. France has passed legislation that all new washing machines would incude a microfibre filter from 2025 onwards. As this will require manufacturers to change the design of their machines it makes sense that the UK should also introduce similar legislation.
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