Erosion Control, or Environmental Contradiction

Erosion Control or Environmental Contradiction?

Understanding the environmental tradeoffs embedded in modern erosion and sediment control practice.

By Rifka Malik, CPESC, CPE

As a Certified Professional Estimator, I work in the space where ideals meet project budgets. I spend my days translating design intent into costs and constructability, balancing regulatory requirements with the practical realities of construction. As a Certified Professional in Erosion and Sediment Control, I’ve studied the science behind ESC as carefully as I’ve priced it. It’s an unusual vantage point, where environmental protection and construction economics intersect. From that viewpoint, I’ve started to ask an uncomfortable question: are we truly protecting the environment with our current erosion control practices, or are we quietly creating a different kind of environmental harm?

Toward the end of a construction project, long after the bid numbers and spreadsheets are forgotten, the sight is always the same: torn silt fence, frayed wattles, broken stakes, inlet bags clogged with sediment, and shredded synthetic blankets, all piled into dumpsters and hauled to the landfill. Truck after truck leaves the site carrying what was once installed in good faith as standard Best Management Practices (BMP). Watching those loads disappear, I can’t help wondering whether our focus on controlling sediment has become disconnected from the broader environmental purpose these practices were meant to serve. As the cycle moves from installation to maintenance and then disposal, I often find myself questioning how single use materials became such an accepted part of erosion and sediment control.

Erosion and sediment control (ESC) began with good science and honest intent. Disturbed soil on active construction sites can erode at rates far exceeding undisturbed ground, sending sediment into waterways. Regulations under the Clean Water Act compelled the industry to actively protect our waterways from pollution, and every state developed manuals of best management practices. Those manuals standardized the same familiar toolkit. Silt fence, wattles, inlet bags, sediment basins, and blankets became standard tools, and within a short time these BMPs were fully embedded in construction culture. While they do work, some better than others, at least in the short term, most of these temporary controls are built on a single use assumption. Once the site is stabilized, they are removed and discarded. Most end up buried in landfills, where, as one scientific review notes, “plastic materials persist and pollute long after their intended use is finished, which means that there is no such thing as an end to the impact of plastics within a typical human lifespan” (Wojnowska-Baryła et al., 2022).

The irony is that this outcome isn’t a mistake. It’s how the system evolved. Regulations require installation, maintenance, and removal, but not recovery, reuse, or recycling. As a result, nearly every foot of polypropylene geotextile and a large share of other BMPs are landfilled at project closeout. The sediment they captured may no longer threaten a stream, but the plastic that prevented its migration becomes a new pollutant in another part of the ecosystem.

This contradiction is compounded by economics. The erosion control industry has evolved into a volume driven business. The more linear feet installed and replaced, the more revenue generated, not just for manufacturers, but for contractors as well. I once heard a salesperson at a trade show advise a contractor that it was “cheaper to junk and buy more plastic wattles than to transport and reuse them.” He wasn’t being cynical; he was being factual. Cleaning, storing, and transporting used materials costs money and reduces efficiency. Disposing to a landfill is more economical in most cases. In most bids, landfill fees are predictable, low risk, and easily incorporated, while reusing materials introduces cost and uncertainty with no contractual reimbursement. In that equation, pollution becomes the predictable outcome of a compliance system built around disposable products. We protect streams, but in doing so we simultaneously create landfill waste. Is this the version of environmental progress we’re prepared to accept?

Even when contractors want to act responsibly, they’re trapped in the math. There’s no credit for reduced waste, and no reward for going beyond the minimum. Reusing materials requires additional labor, equipment time, and yard space, all of which add cost with no reimbursement. If reused products fail inspection or performance, the contractor bears the liability. The landfill, by contrast, is a safe bet, relatively inexpensive, final, and invisible once the truck pulls away.

Many of the most commonly used BMPs are not even designed for reuse. Silt fence, which has become synonymous with ESC, is known to have a limited life cycle. On longer term construction sites, it must be constantly maintained, which includes replacing sections that have worn out. In my many years of experience in this industry, I have yet to meet a piece of silt fence that traveled from one job site to another.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Stormwater Best Management Practice: Silt Fences (2021) fact sheet explains why clogged silt fence fabric cannot be reused: “Once the sediment has clogged the fence, it can no longer drain slowly and function as originally designed.”That same EPA document then states: “The fabric and damaged posts go to the landfill. Steel posts and some of the wooden posts can be reused.” In theory the supporting posts might be salvageable. In practice reuse is extremely rare. Separating intact posts from sediment laden, mud soaked fabric requires additional labor, cleaning, and handling time. As a result, most contractors dispose of the entire assembly despite the technical possibility of saving the posts. Even if the posts were reused, there is still a large amount of geosynthetic material that ends up in landfills.

From a regulatory perspective, this approach still checks every box. Inspectors confirm that BMPs are in place during construction, functioning as intended, and removed when no longer needed. Once that’s done, the project is compliant, no matter how much material ends up in a landfill. There’s no requirement to report how many tons of perimeter controls and rolled erosion control systems were discarded, or to distinguish between recyclable, biodegradable, and permanent waste. On most construction sites, two contractors can deliver identical environmental results in the field, one through reuse and careful management, the other by wholesale disposal, and from an ESC perspective, the system records no difference between them. Compliance, in this sense, has become binary: you either have BMPs, or you don’t. The objective is to prevent sediment from leaving the site. With no incentive to do otherwise, contractors often structure their bids around the most efficient path to passing inspection, not around long term environmental performance.

As both an estimator and a CPESC, I see this gap clearly because I’m trained to measure every measurable variable. Yet we fail to measure the broader environmental impact created in the process. We don’t know how many tons of polypropylene geotextile are buried every year. We also don’t account for the embodied energy involved in producing these products or the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their manufacturing and transport. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources estimates that 12 million pounds of plastic erosion control blankets are used annually in North America, yet there is no systematic tracking of how much ESC material is ultimately disposed of, reused, or recycled, because our framework was never built to ask these questions.

The tension within ESC practice becomes clearer when the regulatory, economic, and scientific perspectives are viewed together. Regulations focus on controlling sediment at the boundary of a site, economics favor quick and measurable compliance, and the science shows that the materials used to achieve that compliance persist long after their function ends. None of these systems are designed to produce waste, yet none are designed to prevent it either. When they operate independently, they converge on the same outcome across most projects, and that outcome is disposal. This is a structural blind spot, not an intentional flaw, and its consequences accumulate quietly in landfills rather than in the waterways where our attention remains fixed.

Independent scientific organizations have also begun examining these material choices. Earlier this year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published Use of Sustainable Materials for Erosion and Sediment Control Practices, a comprehensive synthesis examining the materials used in modern ESC systems. As the nation’s independent, congressionally chartered scientific advisory body, the National Academies offer evidence based guidance that shapes the policies and standards governing infrastructure and construction practices. Their report acknowledges the industry’s longstanding reliance on synthetic polymers, noting that these materials are rarely recycled and can break down into microplastics, an emerging pollutant of concern. It highlights wildlife entanglement caused by plastic mesh blankets and identifies rolled erosion control products as particularly problematic.

The Academies’ work is invaluable, and it provides a scientific foundation for a broader discussion about material choices in ESC practice. Their synthesis focuses primarily on Department of Transportation experience, and it outlines material science questions and sustainability challenges that deserve further study. Yet from the broader industry perspective, especially one rooted in private sector construction, there are additional realities worth considering.

On private development sites outside the transportation sector, erosion control decisions are governed by bid prices, installation familiarity, and compliance requirements rather than long term sustainability metrics. Private projects typically do not conduct the type of material evaluations or pilot testing described in the Academies’ synthesis. They follow the BMP manual, install the prescribed controls, and remove them at the end of the project, often disposing of those materials entirely because reuse is not supported by current pay structures or logistics.

In the National Academies interviews, most state DOTs pointed to wildlife entanglement as their most pressing concern with synthetic erosion control products. Rolled erosion control blankets with plastic mesh were repeatedly cited as the practices most likely to trap snakes, turtles, and small mammals, and many agencies have already moved toward plastic free alternatives for this reason alone. These impacts are visible, documented, and impossible to ignore. Yet the environmental burdens that remain hidden, rolled erosion control products containing polyethylene or polypropylene mesh, geotextile filter fabrics, and composite straw-plastic blankets that enter landfills at the end of every project, receive far less attention within the broader industry because their effects are not directly visible. Observed impacts shape agency priorities, while the environmental consequences of disposal remain largely overlooked.

A study in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology by Zhao, Kabir, Luster Teasley and Zhang documented that plastic waste inside landfills breaks into smaller fragments over time. A separate review of landfill degradation processes found that polypropylene, which is the polymer used in silt fence fabric and in many wattles and blankets, is also one of the polymers most frequently detected in landfill microplastics (Wojnowska Baryła et al., 2022). The researchers in the Zhao study noted that these fragments develop rough surfaces during fragmentation and can adsorb heavy metals and organic pollutants from the surrounding waste. Once polypropylene based ESC materials enter landfills, they continue to degrade and contribute to a persistent microplastic load within the landfill system.

None of this means erosion control should be abandoned. The damage from uncontrolled runoff is real and well documented, contributing to downstream sedimentation and degraded water quality. But after decades of watching these systems in practice, I’ve come to believe that we need to reframe what success looks like. It isn’t just a clean discharge point or a passing inspection. It’s a net environmental benefit, one that accounts for what we consume and discard in the process of protecting our waterways.

In my work as a CPE and CPESC on civil and environmental projects, I often encounter the downstream consequences of landfill disposal on cleanup and remediation efforts. At times, it feels as though the environmental cost is simply being relocated rather than eliminated.

There are practical ways forward. We can start by prioritizing prevention over capture, phasing projects, stabilizing early, and preserving topsoil so that fewer synthetic devices are needed at the outset. Designers can specify biodegradable or reusable materials where conditions allow and shape ESC plans so removal logistics and disposal costs are considered from the beginning. Owners and agencies can create pay items or bid credits for reuse and waste reduction, turning sustainability into a competitive advantage instead of a cost burden. And most importantly, regulators can begin tracking the waste these systems generate, with the same rigor used to track sediment control performance. What gets measured gets managed, and right now, waste is invisible.

I am not suggesting that the industry is acting carelessly. In most cases, ESC systems are designed, installed, and maintained by professionals who take their responsibilities seriously. But good intentions don’t exempt us from scrutiny. We cannot ignore that these intentions operate within economic structures that determine what is realistically implemented. When tons of plastic and fabric are hauled to landfills under the framework of environmental protection, it’s worth asking whether the system is truly working as designed, or whether it’s time to design something better.

Modern erosion and sediment control practice was built on the belief that more control always means less harm. It may be time to test that belief. The goal is not to undermine the progress the industry has made, but to broaden it, aligning our methods, our economics, and our purpose so that erosion control delivers a true net environmental benefit rather than a benefit measured only by compliance. When the cost structure rewards disposal over reuse and when performance is measured only at the discharge point, the industry inevitably gravitates toward the most efficient path, not necessarily the most sustainable one. If we want better outcomes, we need a framework that values them.

The opportunity in front of us is not to replace erosion control, but to refine it, to design specifications, pay items, and practices that reflect both the science and the long term impact of the materials we choose. Only then will erosion control protect the environment not just in theory or on paper, but in the full lifecycle of the projects we build. Long after the project is complete, long after the warranty has expired, and long after the clients have moved on, the plastic we buried remains. It becomes our most enduring construction legacy.

References

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Stormwater Best Management Practice: Silt Fences. Office of Water, December 2021.

Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Plastic Erosion Control Blankets and Wildlife Don’t Mesh. August 2020.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Use of Sustainable Materials for Erosion and Sediment Control Practices. Washington, DC, 2025.

Zhao, R., Kabir, M. S., Luster-Teasley, S., and Zhang, L. “Microplastics in Landfill Leachate: Sources, Detection, Occurrence, and Removal.” Environmental Science & Ecotechnology, 16, 2023.

Wojnowska-Baryła, I., Kulikowska, D., and Bernat, K. “Plastic Waste Degradation in Landfill Conditions: The Problem with Microplastics and Their Direct and Indirect Environmental Effects.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(20), 2022.