Tiny bits of plastic are emerging as a threat to the Great Lakes.
Large quantities of round pellets, mainly from health and beauty products, were among the plastic pieces researchers found in 2012 in Lake Erie, Lake Superior and Lake Huron.
In fact, some of the Lake Erie samples had more plastics than have been found in ocean samples, said Sherri A. Mason, an associate professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Fredonia, who led the study.
“The levels were astronomical … and that’s troubling,” she said.
The continuing research is the first look at plastics in the Great Lakes and the second look at plastics in freshwater in the world. Plastics in the oceans have been studied since 1999.
The No. 1 source of the microplastics in the Great Lakes appears to be tiny scrubbing beads added to personal-care products, such as facial scrubs and toothpastes, Mason said.
Two companies, Ohio-based Proctor & Gamble and New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson, have told an advocacy group they will stop using spheres of polyethylene, a type of plastic, in their beauty products by 2017.
In 2012, Mason’s team collected water samples at 21 sites on the three lakes. About 90 percent of the almost-microscopic plastics found that summer were from Lake Erie.
Additional samples were collected this summer on Lakes Erie, Michigan and Ontario, and the adjoining St. Lawrence River — with about 135 samples collected, Mason said.
The results of this year’s sampling won’t be analyzed until December, and the full report won’t be completed until next spring, Mason said.
The sampling was supported by the Los Angeles-based 5 Gyres Institute, the Burning River Foundation in Cleveland and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant program.
The results surprised Mason’s team, she said. The researchers did not expect to find such concentrations of plastics and had not expected the pieces to be so tiny, she said at a recent conference about Lake Erie held at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
The pieces found were generally from one-third of a millimeter to 1 millimeter in size. That is from 1/64th of an inch to 3/64ths of an inch.
Sixty percent of the microplastics found floating in Lake Erie in the 2012 sampling were the “perfectly spherical balls of plastic,” she said.
Such beads are so tiny that they go from home drains through sewage treatment plants into rivers that empty into Lake Erie and other Great Lakes, Mason said.
It is unclear how great a threat such plastics pose to the lakes and their ecosystems, Mason said. Much more research will be needed to answer that question, but the issue is seen as an emerging cause for concern.
Fish could eat the plastic beads, passing them along to humans who eat the fish, Mason said. Also, the beads can absorb toxic chemicals in the water and might serve as rafts for tiny microorganisms, including bacteria, that could be dangerous to humans.
There is laboratory evidence that the plastics can be troublesome in the food chain, but it is unclear if that is happening in the Great Lakes, Mason said, adding that removing the plastics from the lake waters is not possible.
It is unclear how long it might take the plastics to degrade and whether they are washing ashore or sinking to the bottom, she said.
The plastics move with lake currents and are likely to travel from the upper three lakes into Lake Erie and then Lake Ontario. They then would flow into the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence River.
Research in oceans has shown only low levels of microplastics from beauty products, Mason said. At this time, it is unclear why the concentrations are so much greater in the Great Lakes.
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Mason said plastics pollution is becoming a whole new area of scientific research.
The United Nations estimates that 80 percent of the plastics found in the oceans originated on land. About half float, half sink.
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
The 5 Gyres Institute took Mason’s 2012 results to Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson. The advocacy group that takes its name from the five gyres — oceanic whirlpools where floating plastic debris gathers around the globe — expected a fight.
But Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson said they are phasing out the polyethylene microbeads and are developing an environmentally friendly alternative. Unilever and the Body Shop have made similar pledges, according to media reports.
Mason is an advocate for keeping all plastics out of the water.
“No level of plastics in the lakes is acceptable,” she said. “The best cure is to find ways to reduce our plastic use. We’re all part of the problem.”
About the Author
