More than a month into summer, thousands of people continue to visit Great Lakes beaches, dunes, inland lakes and our majestic rivers.
Home to more than 20 percent of the world's fresh water, our Great Lakes are part of who we are in Michigan.
Our enjoyment of the lakes and our water is what drives us to do our day jobs for the Michigan Environmental Council and Michigan League of Conservation Voters, working with stakeholders and lawmakers to develop policies that ensure we put laws in place that ensure we have safe, clean drinking water, preserve our land and protect our Great Lakes.
One issue that has been less noticed is microplastics pollution. While common litter on our beaches is visible and obvious—like plastic water bottles, cigarette filters and balloons—another, much smaller form of pollution called microplastics might be even more problematic.
Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than 5 millimeters in size, some so small they are invisible to the naked eye. They come from a variety of sources, including synthetic fibers, marine debris and larger pieces of land-based litter. Researchers estimate some 11,000 tons of plastic pollution enters the Great Lakes each year.
Unfortunately, plastic doesn't readily break down; it just gets smaller, so small that these tiny particles can pass through wastewater treatment and water filtration technologies. Scientists have documented microplastics in Great Lakes-area beer, drinking water and sea salt.
Litter and microplastics do more than threaten the beauty of our Great Lakes. They also have impacts on the wildlife.
These plastics are persistent in the environment, and when they make their way into the ecosystem, they also end up in the fish we eat and the water we drink. Microplastics pollution is a Great Lakes issue and a potential health issue that demands more study.
Researchers should continue learning how plastics both absorb chemicals from the environment and release them upon ingestion; the work is needed for the whole range of plastics, from beads and fragments to plastic fibers.
Beyond research, what can be done?
We know the scale of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes is bigger than the individual person or a single governmental unit, and it will take more than volunteer cleanup strategies to seriously address the issue.
Michigan has led on this issue in the past—tackling pollution through the Bottle Bill 40 years ago and with the new recycling legislation running through the Legislature this term.
We can be leaders again by looking at new policies like:
- Responsibly upgrading our waste and drinking water treatment systems to treat and filter a variety of contaminants.
- Building protections into consumer products, such as microfiber filters on washing machines; designing products for permanent reuse in a circular economy; and extending producer responsibility. (An example of this is legislation recently signed into law in Maine that holds producers responsible for plastic pollution.)
- Letting communities lead by removing restrictions on local governments from leading, experimenting and tackling issues on their own—policies like the ban on plastic bag bans.
Protecting our Great Lakes is not only about stopping oil spills, reducing runoff that causes toxic algae blooms and reducing contaminants from flowing into our waters. Plastic pollution is a growing problem that must be addressed by our leaders.
We proved it could be done in 2015, when states led and the federal government followed with the banning of microbeads. Now, we must take on the whole plastics issue, from milk jugs to microfibers.