And the plastic pieces were tiny — even more so than the 5 millimeter nurdles she was used to. An industrial stormwater pipe was transporting pellets from a Styropek plastics facility and releasing them directly into the creek. It’s a requirement that Styropek must install technology to detect the release of any more plastic pellets from its facility in Monaca, Pennsylvania. With Formosa, Aizaco’s monitoring system is installed above an underground wastewater pipeline roughly 2 miles away from the actual plastic production facility. Every inspection — meaning at least three times a week, per Formosa’s consent decree — has turned up plastic pollution, she told Grist.