Why Get a Storm Drain Screen?

When it rains or snows, rainwater and snow melt will seep into exposed soil, replenishing soil moisture and groundwater systems in the process. However, in cities, towns, and other urban areas that consist largely of non-pervious paved and tarred surfaces, surplus water is not able to soak away into the ground. This surplus water, or stormwater, then runs off these hard impermeable surfaces as surface runoff, entering stormwater drains that flow into canals, rivers and eventually to the ocean.

How Does Stormwater Pollution
Negatively Impact the United States?

For storm drains to work efficiently, stormwater must be able to flow freely through the system so that it can be channeled to a large freshwater body or storage are to prevent water from accumulating and causing flooding. When trash gets washed into the stormwater system it can block drains and stormwater pipes, impeding the efficiency of the system. In times of heavy rainfall, an inefficient drainage system can result in flooding, which can cause extensive damage to infrastructure and property, and in severe cases may even pose a risk to human safety.

Plastic bags, plastic beverage bottles, cans, styrofoam containers, and any other form of trash that flows into the stormwater system, is carried through the drains and is spewed into rivers and lakes with the expelled stormwater as it exits the system. This trash not only reduces the aesthetic appeal of our streams, rivers and lakes, it also limits the potential for utilizing these freshwater bodies for recreational and tourism opportunities. Let face it, who wants to go boating, swimming or fishing in a cesspool of trash? This can have an economic impact, effecting tourism and local businesses (for example retailers of sporting/fishing gear), ultimately impacting peoples livelihoods.

Our oceans are currently facing many challenges, but perhaps one of the toughest challenges is that posed by marine debris. There are two sources of marine debris: ocean-based, and land-based. The former includes discarded fishing gear and trash disposed into the oceans by ships and boats, while the latter includes litter discarded on beaches and trash that flows into the ocean with stormwater runoff. Surprisingly, land-based sources accounts for a whopping 80% of all trash floating around our oceans and much of this comes from stormwater runoff. Marine debris poses a threat to marine animals all along the food chain. Investing in a storm drain screen would be a great investment in the future and help stop pollution.

Wildlife can become entangled or trapped in trash such as plastic bags or cans, or they may mistake small bits of plastic debris for food, which may cause them harm. For example, sea turtles ingest clear plastic bags, which resemble jellyfish when floating in the ocean, while seabirds feed bits of plastic to their chicks. Plastic and styrofoam break down into smaller and smaller pieces, resulting in a plastic soup consisting of tiny plastic pellets, which are often mistaken for food by fish, birds and other wildlife in both freshwater and marine systems. Plastics are not readily digested and tend to accumulate in the gut of animals. When a predator consumes a fish that has a gut full of undigested plastic, this is passed up the food chain to the predator, who invariably also has difficulty digesting it. Animals and birds that feed on plastic may die directly as a result of injuries caused by consuming these foreign objects, or may slowly starve to death as their stomachs become increasingly full of plastic and they lack the urge to forage food. Many species that are affected, such as turtles and albatrosses, are already endangered, and the increase in adult and chick deaths related to ingesting plastic is compounding the problem.

Trash not only degrades the environment and endangers wildlife, it also poses a risk to human health. Many materials that linger in the environment, such as plastics, are manufactured from toxic chemicals, including petroleum, which are absorbed into the body tissues of fish during the digestion process. These pollutants also leach into the surrounding water as the trash breaks down, and may contaminate filter feeding organisms such as shellfish. Plastics also absorb persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as PCBs and DDT at levels that can be as much as a million times higher than what occurs naturally in seawater. These contaminants, which are endocrine disruptors that affect reproduction and development, are stored in the organs and fatty tissue of animals, becoming more concentrated in the body tissue of animals higher up the food chain. Long-living predators at the top of the food chain, including humans who consume fish and shellfish, accumulate more and more pollutants in their bodies over time, compromising their immune systems, reproductive systems and ultimately their health and survival. Protect humans and animals with a storm drain screen!

Preventing Trash from Entering the System

The most effective way to keep trash out of your stormdrain system is to stop it before it can enter the stormdrain. By collecting the trash as close as possible to the source, the entire system is able to perform as designed. To learn more about how cities can help resolve this issue, please click here.