Crossing the human-environment gradient: the geography and ecology of plastic pollution in streams

Plastic deposition in hydrological systems is a pervasive problem at all geographic scales from loci of pollution to global ocean circulation.  Much attention has been devoted to plastic deposition in marine contexts such as beaches and mid-oceanic gyres.  Less is known about inputs of plastics into local hydrological systems, such as streams, where pollution can be prevented.  A challenge to preventing such inputs resides in how people conceive of plastics and landscapes.  A problem is that plastics are conceived of as short use-life disposable goods, yet their physical structure results in preservation on geological time scales.  Archaeological concepts that encapsulate the temporal dimension of plastic preservation as well as the dichotomy of cultural systemic contexts and geological/archaeological contexts provide a stronger basis for assessing plastic deposition.  That is, pollution exists in an ethnobiological context.  We discuss that context and consider pilot data on plastic inputs into streams in Denton, Texas.