Larry Bell: You can't brew good beer without good water

Our Great Lakes face a growing number of threats that demand urgent action from all of us fortunate enough to live in this part of the world.

As a business owner who relies on the purity of Great Lakes water by turning it — and hops, malts and other ingredients grown right here in Michigan — into craft brews, I take the sustainability of our business practices seriously.

Whether it's making energy-efficiency improvements or new endeavors to address microplastics, Bell's Brewery works hard to minimize our impact on the Great Lakes.

And as a co-chair of the Great Lakes Business Network—a coalition of businesses that advocate for Great Lakes protection—I know myself and fellow members are invested in addressing our water infrastructure issues and making the necessary improvements to ensure pollution, especially plastic pollution, doesn't reach our waterways.

One issue of concern is the amount of plastic that is inadvertently released into the Great Lakes, degrading into small pieces called "microplastics" that accumulate in the food chain and wreak havoc on natural systems.

Microplastics in our Great Lakes have been detected at high concentration levels. According to a recent survey by the U.S. Geological Survey, microplastics have been recorded at 112,000 particles per square mile of Great Lakes water.

Recently, to address our own plastic management, Bell's worked with other breweries to secure a grant to purchase two balers that allows us to begin recycling bags made of woven polypropylene that are used for brewing grains like barley and other ingredients that come in large quantities.

These bags and what are called "super sacks" are essentially bulk bags that can hold upward of 3,000 pounds. While they are technically recyclable, there wasn't access to a viable recycling outlet until now.

Truckloads of these bags are needed to make it worthwhile for a recycling company to take them on. Even though we are a larger brewery, Bell's wasn't generating enough used bags on our own.

The balers purchased with the grant for our brewery and others allow us to use it for transport, and finished bales are processed through a partnership with Padnos in Grand Rapids and their Kalamazoo partner AJ's Recycling Services.

Because of our commitment to sustainability, we worked with other breweries to secure this grant, which we are proud to say will reduce the amount of plastics being discarded in our state.

We also know it takes more than individual actions of a few businesses to keep our lakes clean. It also takes smart policies at the local, state and federal level to ensure we're all doing our part.

The good news is there are solutions to ensure that microplastics don't result in a catastrophe for our Great Lakes.

The Great Lakes Business Network supports policies that will keep more plastics out of our freshwater ecosystem as well as other policies to keep our lakes clean.

There are many other infrastructure investments that are necessary to make changes that reduce or eliminate pollution entering our rivers, lakes and streams. Our Great Lakes are only as great as they can be when we work together to protect them.

The Great Lakes Business Network engages in advocacy on several fronts—from mitigating harmful algal blooms, to advancing clean energy opportunities and shuttering Enbridge's Line 5 oil pipeline—and we look forward to continuing our leadership from an economic perspective as we engage on the issue of microplastics.