Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies

NREL has collected data on waterborne plastics debris as part of the Waterborne Plastics Assessment and Collection Technologies (WaterPACT) project, with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

NREL is well positioned to study waterborne plastics pollution for several reasons:

• Sources of waterborne plastics debris are across all energy sectors, including industry, commerce, transportation, and residential sectors.
• Reclaiming plastic debris also reclaims the money, energy, and materials initially invested in the production of plastic materials.
• Researchers at DOE's national laboratories have the expertise, experience, and existing technological capabilities at hand to address this problem.

Advances in energy research, including hydrokinetic or solar supported by DOE, could power in-water technology solutions for waterborne plastics. A federal effort is well suited to help state and local governments and nongovernmental organizations address a challenge of this scale. For these reasons, DOE launched WaterPACT in 2020, in which project partners work to characterize and remove waterborne plastics debris in the United States.

With support from DOE, NREL and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are in the late stages of completing a nationwide field measurement campaign and conducting predictions to amass accessible, actionable, and consistent data on waterborne plastics debris. The national labs will build on this information to foster technology development in plastics debris measurement, collection, conversion (recycling or upcycling), and product redesign.

Vision and Mission

The WaterPACT project’s long-term vision is to deliver a suite of energy-powered technologies to sense, collect, and convert waterborne plastics and redesign the plastics life cycle to avoid contaminating waterways.

The project team will:

• Create a national-scale, broad-spectrum characterization of U.S. waterborne plastics properties, trends, values, and social contexts in partnership with partner agencies
• Develop a set of integrated modeling tools to predict pathways of plastics in U.S. waterways and coastal seas and assess the impacts of plastic pollution in marine environment and human health
• Develop targeted technologies to reclaim and remediate waterborne plastics pollution in partnership with other energy innovators and the myriad organizations operating in this space.

To achieve this vision, the WaterPACT team will pursue four mission aims:

• Characterize, quantify, model, and estimate the value of the range of U.S. waterborne plastics and leachates (chemicals from plastics that leach into water) 
• Develop models, analyses, and technologies to reclaim and remediate waterborne plastics debris
• Leverage funding from DOE in distributed energy generation, blue economy markets, materials characterization, recycling/upcycling, modeling, and data science to support technology developers
• Identify, understand, and reduce plastics-pollution-related environmental and health stressors impacting Americans.

Timeline

Phase 1 (Fiscal Years 2022–2025): Assessment

Phase 1 includes gathering foundational field and laboratory measurements, modeling the flow of plastics, estimating the value of their recovery, and sharing data broadly.

Phase 2 (Fiscal Years 2026–2028): Collection

Phase 2 is organized into a portfolio of two R&D pillars—sensing and collection—with an emphasis on returning quantified values to recycled polymer supply chains and avoiding costs to Americans.

Phase 3 (Fiscal Year 2029 and Beyond): Industry-Led Research and Development

Phase 3 involves the transfer of portfolio funding and management to a consortium of stakeholders across plastics production, consumer goods, interested state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, energy technology developers, and sensing, collection, conversion, and redesign technology developers.

Measuring Success

The WaterPACT team aims to achieve the following long-term goals:

• Achieve readily deployable, cost-effective technology solutions for sensing and collecting plastics pollution in U.S. waterways
• Remove over 50% of suspended and floating waterborne plastics debris in U.S. waterways by 2040
• Provide industry with key self-monitoring and remediation tools to address upstream and downstream plastics pollution.

Scope and Partners

Experts at NREL are leading the WaterPACT project in collaboration with researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory.

Critical Phase 1 project partners include U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 3, Louisiana State University, University of California Riverside, Oregon State University, Portland State University, and the Moore Institute.

Publications

Modeling the Microplastic Distribution Along the Delaware River Estuary: Accumulation Patterns and Hydrodynamic Influences, Marine Pollution Bulletin (2025)

Generation of Macro- and Microplastic Databases by High-Throughput FTIR Analysis With Microplate Readers, Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (2024)

Quantifying the Influence of Size, Shape, and Density of Microplastics on Their Transport Modes: A Modeling Approach, Marine Pollution Bulletin (2024)

Riverine Plastic Pollution: Field Sampling Protocol and Implementation in U.S. Rivers, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Technical Report (2023)

Riverine Plastic Pollution: Sampling and Analysis Methods, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Technical Report (2022)

Contact