Plastic Beads Found in the Great Lakes

It has been recently discovered that there are millions of tiny plastic bits in the Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Heron, Erie, Michigan and Ontario. Gigantic mats of the floating plastic have been studied and reported in the oceans but not in the Great Lakes until now. The Great Lakes provide a fifth of the world’s fresh water and it has not been determined yet how much of an effect this will have on the local economy or the environment. Studies are currently being done to determine if the fish are eating the plastics, which if they are, could prove to be a health risk for consumers. It is not clear how the “microplastics” will affect guidelines for fishing or how cities will be affected because cities discharge treated wastewater into the lakes. It is also unclear how this will affect the fishing businesses that utilize the lakes. The samples taken from Lake Erie were surprisingly higher than the samples taken from the oceans. Last year The American Chemical Society collected almost 1.7 million plastic particles in Lake Erie. The samples taken from Lake Ontario were just as polluted as the samples taken from Erie. It is suspected that the plastic particles are coming from personal care products, which use mirobeads, because some of the pellets are perfectly round and some being only seen by a microscope. The beads can pass through the filtration screens at waste treatment plants and some big companies such as L’Oreal have said they will no longer make products with microbeads. Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson have stated that they would also implement phase-out plans for microbeads. The biggest questions many are concerned about are how will this affect the food chain and could this contamination reach the consumers, us?

As far as I am concerned, this discovery is one that needs to be dealt with immediately. Being that the Great Lakes contain a fifth of the world’s fresh water, people should be greatly concerned. Being that it is unclear how this situation will affect the local economies and the environment, more research needs to be done to further give a clearer insight upon this contamination. Once more research is done, cleanup and laws should be implemented to not only clean the Great Lakes up but to prevent this from happening again in the future.

Charlotte Observer