{"id":32280,"date":"2020-04-08T10:38:22","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T14:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/?p=32280"},"modified":"2021-10-30T11:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T15:19:22","slug":"plenty-of-plastic-in-the-great-lakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fondriest.com\/news\/plenty-of-plastic-in-the-great-lakes.htm","title":{"rendered":"Plenty of plastic in the Great Lakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the high profile of plastic pollution in the ocean, the same problem in the Great Lakes is not well understood.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBelieve it or not, we\u2019re kind of in the early stages of understanding plastic pollution in the Great Lakes,\u201d said Sherri Mason, sustainability coordinator and professor of chemistry at <\/span>Penn State\u2014Behrend<\/span><\/a>. She\u2019s one author of <\/span>research published in January<\/span><\/a> in the Journal of Great Lakes Research examining the levels of plastic in Lake Erie and, for the first time, Lake Ontario.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe research revealed the highest level of plastic pollution in any of the Great Lakes occurs in Lake Ontario. Lake Erie was a distant second. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

<\/h3>\n

Trawling for Plastic<\/b><\/h3>\n

Mason\u2019s research relied on seizing opportunities to sample the lakes when they presented themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI made use of whatever boat I can,\u201d she said. \u201cBetween 2012 and 2014, I went out on at least 10 different vessels.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When a boat was available, it was rigged with a manta trawl, a net that skims the surface of the water and collects what\u2019s floating near the top of the lake. After a half-hour, whatever the trawl collected was removed and packaged up to be taken back to a lab.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Great

Microplastics pulled from the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of Sherri Mason)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

In the lab, any organic material was decomposed and the remaining plastic was analyzed for abundance, shape and size. That information ran through a computer model, provided a look at the plastic across Lake Erie. The modeling allowed researchers to estimate that Lake Erie\u2019s surface had 475 million plastic particles, weighing 6.45 metric tons (over 14,000 pounds).<\/span><\/p>\n

While it wasn\u2019t possible to run the same models for Lake Ontario, by comparing the samples from both lakes, it\u2019s clear that Lake Ontario has far more plastic. Lake Erie had an average of 45,000 particles per square kilometer, while Lake Ontario averaged 230,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of plastic,\u201d Mason said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Great Lakes plastic leaves through Ontario<\/b><\/h3>\n

Lake Ontario has high numbers of plastic particles for a reason, Mason said. Every scrap of plastic in any Great Lake will flow through it before reaching the sea. But, Lake Ontario also gets a lot of plastic waste from several major metropolitan areas, the largest of which, Toronto, hosts major plastic production.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sample with the highest amount of plastics came from right outside of Toronto.<\/span><\/p>\n

The plastic\u2019s shape\u2014or morphology\u2014tells part of the story of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pellet-shaped plastics are most likely pre-production plastics. This means it got into the Great Lakes before it was made into a consumer product, Mason said. Forty-six percent of the plastic removed from Lake Erie was pellets, while 12% from Lake Ontario was.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pellets could also be microbeads from personal care products. Future sampling would likely see a decline in microbeads since they were banned nationwide in 2015. A Canadian ban went into effect in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Great

Microbeads like these were banned from personal care products, but are still found in the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of Sherri Mason)<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

A smaller percentage in both lakes came from fibers (9% in Lake Erie and 2% in Lake Ontario). This is evidence of clothes made from plastic, which shed fibers in the wash, Mason said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, most of the plastic found in the lakes are fragments of larger plastic items that have broken down. In Lake Erie, 42% of particles were fragments. In Lake Ontario, 76% were.<\/span><\/p>\n

These fragments come from plastics that have been manufactured, used and discarded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the stuff that we\u2019re using that we find out there,\u201d Mason said. \u201cAs a consumer, if you make conscious choices to use less plastics, we are going to find less plastic in the water. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Plastic production is set to continue increasing for years to come, but <\/span>there is evidence<\/span><\/a> that the public is interested in reducing plastic consumption.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mason doesn\u2019t lay all the blame at the feet of the public. Industry should be responsible for their products, she said. But she is optimistic about the power of people to shift the trends of plastic pollution for the Great Lakes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite mantra, we\u2019re all part of the problem, but we\u2019re all part of the solution,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

If a solution for Great Lakes plastics is found, the lakes will still have a long way to go before they are plastic free.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first ever measure of plastic pollution in Lake Ontario shows the whole Great Lakes system has a plastic problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":32284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,5,32,79,8],"tags":[2100,60,125,2105,496,109,2099,2101,2104,2103,659,2102,2098],"class_list":["post-32280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth-atmosphere","category-featured-articles","category-lakes-reservoirs","category-monitoring-gear-2","category-newsfeed","tag-erie","tag-featured","tag-great-lakes","tag-microbeads","tag-microplastic","tag-news-ticker","tag-ontario","tag-penn-state-behrend","tag-plastic-fibers","tag-plastic-pellets","tag-plastic-pollution","tag-sherri-mason","tag-trawling"],"remote_post_permalink":false,"remote_post_featured_image":false,"yoast_head":"\nPlenty of plastic in the Great 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