Homepage Featured
Companies say bye to polystyrene foam
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The second of two stories exploring the effects of polystyrene on the environment, organizations fighting to ban it and companies adapting environment-friendly alternatives.
Homepage Featured
Polystyrene products threaten the environment, organizations fight back
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The first of two stories exploring the effects of polystyrene on the environment, organizations fighting to ban it and companies adapting environment-friendly alternatives.
Waste
Golf ball pollution creates jobs for people with disabilities
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While microplastics get plenty of attention as a Great Lakes pollutant, researchers say there is not enough information to know if these macroplastic golf balls pose similar harm in freshwater systems.
Homepage Featured
With plastics, the message is the bottle
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Microplastics are showing up in sediments as well as water.
Plastics
Great Lakes advocates fight for last straw
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Plastic straws pose problems to waterways and the animals that inhabit them.
Nearshore
Great Lakes researcher recognized for pioneering plastic pollution studies
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Her efforts led to bans on microplastics and to the discovery that plastic is ubiquitous throughout the environment.
Echo
Wash, rinse, pollute, repeat
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Parts of our clothing ends up in the bellies of fish because of our laundering habits.
Waste
MSU study raises doubts about biodegradable plastics
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New research from Michigan State University indicates that biodegradable plastics might not actually be breaking down in landfills any faster than other plastics.
Water
Federal legislation would ban microplastics in personal care products
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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.
Water
Plastics in your face? There’s an app for that
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It lets you scan bar codes of personal hygiene products to see if they contain microbeads of plastic, an increasing pollution concern in the Great Lakes and elsewhere.