Research suggests the concentration of microplastics in Lake Erie rivals the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The particles are present in all five Great Lakes, but there’s no coordinated, region-wide effort to monitor the pollutant.
Now, the International Joint Commission, which helps the United States and Canada protect shared waters, has proposed a system to measure and report on microplastics across the lakes.
Scientists with the organization say it’s an important step to understand how plastics are impacting Great Lakes ecosystems.
“Globally, we think there's quite a lot of microplastics,” said Rebecca Rooney, a member of ICJ’s Great Lakes Science Advisory Board and an associate professor with the University of Waterloo. “But we need more monitoring to be able to really put a fine point on how much there is and where it is within the Great Lakes.”
Microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes
Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastics less than 5 millimeters long. They can come from plastic bags and bottles as they break down, from tires that wear away on pavement, or they can take the form of microfibers that shed from clothing.
While it’s unclear just how much microplastic litters the lakes, Rooney says it’s likely a lot.
“We know that it's in the water, it's in the sediment and it's in the organisms that live in the Great Lakes,” she said. “We know that some of the highest concentration of microplastic particles in fish tissues that have ever been reported come from the Great Lakes.”
"Some of the highest concentration of microplastic particles in fish tissues that have ever been reported come from the Great Lakes.”Rebecca Rooney
That’s the case for a few reasons, she said.
The Great Lakes aren’t as vast as the oceans, so the microplastic particles are contained to a smaller area. And the Great Lakes region is highly developed.
“So there's a lot of potential sources of microplastics going into the Great Lakes,” Rooney said. “We just really need more research to understand the dynamics of microplastics once they're in the Great Lakes.”
Because once they’re in the Great Lakes, they don’t just have the potential to do environmental damage, they could also harm human health.
Research shows people can inhale microplastics, ingest it through food (including small amounts from fish) and absorb it through the skin. And as they accumulate in the human body, they can cause health issues like lung cancer, asthma and inflammatory bowel disease.
A system to monitor microplastics
Right now, Rooney says scientists across the region use different methods to collect and identify microplastic samples.
“We're sort of trying to compare apples to oranges,” she said. “What we have proposed are a series of monitoring standard operating procedures, which if people follow, will bring us to more of an apples to apples comparison.”
Under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the U.S. and Canada already work together to monitor other aspects of the lakes’ health.
Rooney says adding microplastics to the menu of information gathered would go a long way in protecting the water quality and usability of the lakes for years to come.
“We've had a really successful track record of protecting our Great Lakes over the last hundred years,” she said. “And we hope that adding microplastics into the ongoing monitoring will help us have a better understanding of the risk they pose to the Great Lakes ecosystem and the people who live around the Great Lakes.”
