Our Great Lakes are in trouble from so much plastic waste
- Randi Pokladnik
- October 30, 2019
- 1300
The five bodies of fresh water now known as the Great Lakes started to form about 2 billion years ago. These lakes make up about 21 percent of all the fresh water on the planet and 84 percent of North America’s fresh water. These lakes, a result of advancing and retreating glaciers, hold 6 quadrillion gallons of water and are only exceeded in volume of fresh water by the polar ice caps and Lake Baikal.
Most people who live in the Great Lakes region realize the lakes have been negatively impacted throughout the years by expanding industrialization and population growth.
The Great Lakes have become a victim of mankind’s negligence and ignorance. This time the culprit is plastic. There has been quite a lot of information in the news about the extent of plastic pollution in our oceans; however, we are now realizing fresh-water sources are as contaminated as marine water by plastics, especially microplastics.
During their 2017 litter pick-up called “Adopt-a-Beach,” volunteers for Alliance for the Great Lakes recovered whole, in-tact items such as bags, caps, straws and bottles. Over 85 percent of the litter picked up was composed “partially or fully of plastic.”
The Chicago Park District spent $1.6 million in 2018 to clean up litter on the city’s 26 beaches. A study in the Journal of Great Lakes Research believes “it will cost in an excess of $400 million annually to combat and curtail plastic pollution in the Great Lakes.”
A 2017 article published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin said the Great Lakes receive about 11,000 tons of plastics a year. So where does all that plastic come from?
Plastic waste is washed into sewer pipes from our homes and businesses. Trash from streets is carried into storm drains. Washing machines discharge fleece fibers from our clothes. Run-off from landfills carries wastes into sewers. City wastewater treatment plants send microplastics into the lakes. Beachgoers and local neighborhoods are responsible for windblown trash like plastic bags and single-use food containers making their way into the lake.
While ocean plastic debris results from sea-based activities and river pollution, it also originates from the same land-based sources as fresh-water plastic pollution. However, the majority of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes does not reach the oceans. The plastic simply stays suspended in the water column or sinks to the sediment below.
A major concern of the plastic pollution problem in the Great Lakes is the wide-spread contamination from substances termed microplastics. These are particles that are smaller than 5 millimeters in size, about the size of the top of a pushpin. These particles can be in the form of beads such as those found in exfoliant creams, soaps, tooth pastes, lip gloss and deodorants.
Fibers and fragments also are classified as microplastics. These microplastics can come from fleece fabrics. In a study of marine organisms performed by researchers at the University of Toronto, microplastics were found in all fish tested. Another study, published in the Public Library of Science, tested 12 breweries that use municipal water from the Great Lakes and found that all had plastic particles in their beers.
Most of the plastic fragments found are from degradation of larger plastic items. These are referred to as secondary plastic debris. Primary plastics, those in their original form, can be broken down via exposure to UV light and mechanical weathering. However, complete “mineralization,” where a product is broken down into carbon dioxide, water and other inorganic molecules, happens only after hundreds or thousands of years of exposure to sun and weathering. Therefore plastics never truly “go away.”
A 2015 article in the Journal of Great Lakes Research said, “Among Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie, the highest concentration of microplastics was found in Lake Erie.”
This is especially disturbing because these plastics are carbon based and can carry toxic substances such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls into the food chain. Both compounds are capable of causing cancer and birth defects. Studies are now underway to determine the potential for these compounds to be transferred to humans via consumption of fish and other organisms.
Another source of microplastics are factories around the lakes that use very small particles of preproduction plastic pellets called nurdles. Dr. Sherri Mason, a professor at the State University of NY Fredonia and a plastics pollution researcher at Pennsylvania State University, has found these small particles on numerous beaches. The nurdles can enter waterways from spillage or accidental container damage at the factories that use them as precursors for plastic products.
The plastic-making ethane cracker plant being built in Monaca, Pennsylvania and the one being proposed in Belmont County, Ohio will both produce nurdles. The Shell facility at Monaca will “pump out 1.8 million tons of plastics each year.” This is equivalent to about 80 trillion nurdles a year. A study in Denmark showed some of the consequences to species that eat nurdles are “lower reproductive success, toxicity from chemicals and reduced feeding.”
The question remains: Can we even begin to tackle the major problem of plastics pollution in our Great Lakes? Efforts to curb larger plastic debris such as bans on plastic bags and other single-use items have been met with resistance from industry. Recycling can be unpredictable as markets like China have disappeared. Sadly, buying virgin plastic is often cheaper than using recycled plastic.
Additionally the petroleum industry sees cheap plastics as a new use for their fracked gas. The only national program on pollution from plastic pellets is completely voluntary and does not require any reporting about company spills.
Available data on fresh-water lakes around the world shows Lake Erie “exhibits the highest average concentration of microplastics.” It will take a massive push by consumers to demand single-use plastics be phased out and companies become responsible for plastic wastes, including nurdles, from cradle to grave.