There's a Great Plastic Garbage Patch in the Great Lakes, Too

By now you probably know that our oceans have become polluted with all sorts of plastic garbage and debris. While the Great Pacific Garbage Patch moniker doesn't exactly conjure up the right image, as much of the pollution is tiny to microscopic, it's a pretty sad state of affairs carelessness has created.

And now it seems the Great Lakes, the world's surface freshwater system, has its own plastic pollution problem too. New research presented at the American Chemical Society's 245th national meeting shows that floating plastic garbage has become a problem much closer to home.

Beach trash is nothing new, and is of course quite visible and unsightly. But the size of the plastic debris we're talking about here is much, much smaller. In Lake Erie, for instance, 85 percent of the plastic particles are smaller than 2/10 of an inch, if not microscopic. And the stuff is being found in a wide range of concentrations, from 1,500 to 1.7 million particles per square mile. At the low end that may not sound like a lot, but it's nevertheless a serious issue.

Dr. Lorena Rios Mendoza, who presented the research, pointed out that the Great Lakes' plastic problem may be worse than that in the oceans in one crucial way: The number of microparticles in the freshwater quintet is 24 percent higher than in the Southern Atlantic Ocean. And it turns out these small particles are more damaging to aquatic life than bigger hunks of waste. Wildlife mistake the small bits of plastic for food, for example, and the plastic either harms the animal directly--eating plastic is never a good thing--or indirectly, as toxins gradually leach out of the plastic and into the water.

There's also the possibility that fish could be passing on these toxins to hungry humans, though Dr. Rios says the phenomenon still needs research. There is evidence, however, that microparticles of plastic can move their way through the food chain, although whether or not those concentrations can work their way up to humans is another question.

So where's the plastic in the Great Lakes coming from? The usual suspects: Plastic bags, bottles, discarded fishing lines, household cleaners, synthetic fibers that come off clothes when they're washed. In the Great Lakes specifically, the researchers say they found large amounts of raw plastic pellets, the type that would be melted down to make other finished plastic products.

What needs to be done? As with any pollution problem, trying to clean up the mess now won't do much until you stop if flowing from the source. With plastic pollution—barring accidents, which might dump plastic pellets or something like that—it's one part a logistical waste management problem, one part a consumer education and awareness problem, and one part a demand-reduction problem.

That's not to badmouth all plastics or anything. In some applications, particularly where longevity and durability is a concern, or in medical circumstances, plastics are the ideal solution. But the trouble is that's often not how we use them. We use them in single-use disposable products and packaging, in single-use cups, in products with a short lifecycle, even if they're not disposable. Unless the material is entirely and pretty quickly biodegradable, single-use anything doesn't have very good environmental credentials (many paper products are pretty bad too), but plastic is particularly bad.

Moving away from this sort of consumption is part of the solution. Making people aware of this, and being less careless with disposal of the plastic they do use, plus ensuring that there's adequate waste disposal and recycling, are the other two parts.

As far as cleaning it all up? That's a much harder problem. Despite some catchy ideas that have surfaced from time to time–most recently with a rather ill-thought out if viscerally appealing Ocean Cleanup Array–there's really no easy (or perhaps even feasible) solution to taking all the plastic out of the waters. Plastic is forever, people. Let's use it wisely.