On Saturday, May 17, 2025, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance (Puget Soundkeeper) led a cleanup and Escaped Trash Assessment Protocol (ETAP) Survey at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park, a favorite Seattle park on Puget Sound. Our goal: quantify what’s ending up on our shorelines—and why it matters.
“Escaped Trash” refers to materials, like plastic, paper, and other items, that have become litter either through intentional disposal or because they leaked from our waste management systems.
Every Spring Puget Soundkeeper conducts an ETAP survey to assess the types and nature of the debris at Golden Gardens. We are one of dozens of organizations across the region that will do an ETAP survey this year. The effort is being led by Zero Waste Washington, who worked with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop this survey protocol in 2018 to help inform debris reduction advocacy work.
This year, on a drizzling morning in mid-May, 29 volunteers of all ages gathered at Golden Gardens to clean debris from our target area on the beach. Marked by four traffic cones, our study site was slightly under 1 acre in size (Golden Gardens as a whole is nearly 88 acres). The volunteers then help to categorize, sort by condition (intact vs degraded), count, weight and photograph each piece of debris they find.
What we found wasn’t surprising—but as always, sobering: over 86 pounds of debris was collected, little of it recyclable, the majority of it still plastic garbage.
More than 94% of the waste collected fell into the “garbage” category—of which over 26% was plastic followed by large items (22.1% – mostly partially burned lumber), mixed debris (19%), metal (14.6%), paper (13.2%), glass (3.8%), medical waste (1.1%), and foam (0.04%). The plastic debris included single-use food packaging; service ware such as straws and cups and plates; pieces of broken containers, and tons of degraded fragments.
This kind of waste doesn’t break down. It just breaks up, photo-degrading into microplastics that disrupts ecosystems, and threatens salmon, seabirds, orcas, and human health.
Why so much plastic?
During the 2024 ETAP season, for 46 sites around the Sound at a range of urban and beach settings, plastic-dominated items represented 7 of the top 10 categories of debris items. Plastic is king, making up 43% of all litter found and when determining the type of source this debris is generated from, packaging leads the pack.
Plastics are everywhere—and our current system just isn’t built to handle them. In Washington, less than 10% of plastic waste is currently recycled, largely because of contamination and the lack of clear, consistent standards for collection and processing and no strong financial incentives to implement effective recycling programs.
That’s where policy change comes in.
The Washington Recycling Reform Act (SB 5284)
On the same day we were out on the beach conducting the ETAP Survey, Gov Bob Ferguson was signing the new Washington Recycling Reform Act for paper and packaging waste. This hard-won piece of legislation aims to clean up our recycling system by:
- Standardizing what can be recycled across the state
- Extend curbside recycling to everyone in the state
- Holding producers responsible for the end-of-life management of their packaging through an extended producer responsibility (EPR) program
- Encourage products with a higher recycled content over time
- Creating better data tracking for recycling performance
Once fully implemented, this law could drastically reduce the amount of non-recyclable plastic packaging that ends up on our beaches and in our water.
What This Means for Puget Sound
If companies redesign packaging to be truly recyclable—and consumers are given clearer guidance—we may begin to see:
- Fewer bottle caps and wrappers in storm drains
- Reduced confusion about what belongs in recycling bins
- Less plastic food ware litter
- And eventually, less plastic washing up on our shores
What You Can Do
Support Implementation of SB 5697
The law is on the books, but the details matter. We need to continue to advocate for strong regulations that prioritize waste reduction and producer accountability.
Volunteer with Soundkeeper
Join us in a future cleanup or ETAP survey and be part of the solution on the ground. Check out our Events Page to see what’s happening next.
Reduce Plastic Use
Opt for reusable alternatives and support businesses that minimize single-use packaging.
