University of Michigan research scientist Melissa Duhaime and research assistants Rachel Cable and Greg Boehm sort through the organisms, plastic debris and sediment collected in their net’s first tow. Image: Danielle Woodward
BUFFALO – A New York U.S. senator recently introduced legislation to ban tiny plastic particles in personal care products.
These plastic microbeads are found in products like facial scrubs, body washes, hand cleansers and toothpastes. They are too small to be caught by wastewater treatment plants so they end up in large bodies of water like the Great Lakes.
Illinois has already banned plastic microbeads in consumer products and similar legislation is being considered in New York, Ohio and California.
The plastics concentrate toxins that would normally settle in sediment at the bottom of the lake. Researchers say they can be eaten by birds and fish, posing serious health and environmental risks.
“Plastic microbeads have already caused significant ecological damage to the Great Lakes region and they will continue to do so until manufacturers remove them from our personal care products,” Sen. Gillibrand, D-New York, who proposed the legislation, said in a press release.
Microbeads disrupt the food chain and contaminate wildlife, he said. They also hurt commercial and recreational fishing because fish contaminated with toxic plastic cannot be sold or eaten.
Researchers at the University of Michigan tested the Great Lakes for microplastics this summer hoping to spur similar legislation. Recent research has identified up to 1.1 million particles per square kilometer in Lake Ontario alone and thousands of plastic particles per kilometer in Lake Erie.
New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman recently reported that up to 19 tons of plastic microbeads wash down drains each year into New York’s waterways and can last for decades.
“The emerging threat of microbead pollution has the potential to undermine the billions of dollars of public and private investment into our water-based economies and negatively impact the progress of Great Lakes health and restoration,” Jill Jedlicka, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, said in a press release.
In July, Gillibrand urged Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative Interagency Task Force to include microbeads and microplastics as contaminants in their action plan.