On November 4, 2021, two friends went to the area surrounding the base of AT&T’s monopine cell tower at 1857 Hekpa Drive, and found an enormous debris field comprised of many pounds of fallen PVC plastic faux pine branches, many with faux PVC pine needles attached. Clumps of faux PVC pine needles were strewn widely around the debris field, with vast numbers of individual whole and partial PVC pine needles scattered about, often interspersed with whatever natural vegetation is in the area. The investigators demonstrate in the video the extreme brittleness of the PVC pine needles and how easily the PVC pine needles snap into tiny pieces.
Fact: Cell tower microplastic pollution will contaminate the land and water.
“Verizon’s Monopine is a Microplastic “Time Bomb” Which will Disperse Tons of Toxic Microplastic Wastes into Stormwater Catchments and Waterways and then into Nearby Lake Tahoe” stated attorneys in a case in Lake Tahoe regarding the lack of environmental review for telecommunications towers in the region. the legal brief details the “massive quantities of faux PVC branches and PVC pine needles that will adorn Verizon’s metallurgical monstrosity…scores of faux PVC branches, each laden with thousands of faux PVC pine needles, just waiting to break off of the monopine in the next major windstorm or snowstorm, and thereafter, fly down into a widely-dispersed debris field below the tower.”
“we explain at considerable length that Verizon’s proposed monopine presents a toxic microplastic time bomb that will quickly detonate and discharge prodigious quantities of microplastic PVC detritus over a wide dispersal zone surrounding the tower site”