This year, Grochowski has paid particular attention to picking up litter that contains microplastics. He learned, for example, that the filter part of cigarettes is made of a plasticized material called cellulose acetate. “It breaks into tiny fibers of microplastics which gets into our soil and surface waste,” he noted. “Most people don’t realize that the material is basically like dumping plastic fibers!”

Bottle caps are also very common litter found in find in parking lots. “It turns out that many of them get ground down, as they are run over, turning one bottle cap into thousands of micro plastics, which can contaminate our lakes, streams, wildlife, and potentially drinking water sources.”

Pictured: Smashed bottlecap.