Microplastics: A Microscopic Marine Threat
Microplastics result from the breakdown of larger pieces of plastic. Plastic waste in the
Great Lakes flows out the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Atlantic Ocean creating an accumulation of plastic.
Great Lakes flows out the St. Lawrence Seaway and into the Atlantic Ocean creating an accumulation of plastic.
|
Infographic: Will Kriss
|
y Will Kriss
Among the many types of waste that pollute large bodies of water, one is hardly noticeable at first.
“Microplastics are all over the planet at this point,” said Mary Bohling, Sea Grant educator with Michigan State University Extension.
“It depends on the type of plastic. Some of the softer plastics will break down easier and in a shorter time period than the harder plastics, but most plastics are a several hundred years’ breakdown [process].”
A process that begins when a piece of plastic is blown loose from a landfill, nonchalantly tossed away, or washed down a storm drain. Eventually, this plastic may end up in a body of water.
“People litter, but beyond that, the waste that winds up in water systems is put there because someone is breaking a law. An operator is breaking a law or it’s ending up there because we don’t have good technologies for keeping what we now understand as waste in the waterways,” said Sarah Hill, associate professor of environment and sustainability at Western Michigan University.
Even with landfills successfully holding waste, biodegradable materials do not fare much better than non-organic ones.
“Nothing really biodegrades in landfills,” Hill said. “The point of a landfill is to contain material and keep it from oozing out or gassing out. It’s a sealed environment that does not allow a lot of decomposition because in order to make use of the space, landfill operators pack that stuff in there very tightly. In an anaerobic environment, there’s not much decomposition at all.
Depending on where you stick something, it’s not [going to] decompose regardless of what the material is.”
Another source of plastic debris can come from stormwater drains that wash waste out to larger bodies of water.
“Stormwater runoff in general is a pretty big driver of plastic pollution in all sorts of water bodies, I would say,” said Jeff Spoelstra, director of the Office for Sustainability at Western Michigan University
But, the plastic does not simply disappear when it hits the water -- it deteriorates until it is either eaten, cleaned out, washed ashore or moved to other currents, according to a study published in Science.
Eventually, plastics are carried out by currents to join large concentrated areas of plastic waste offshore, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Previously thought of as an island, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is more of a toxic “smog” of trillions of microplastics, according to The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit group focused on cleaning up plastic ocean waste. Since March 2018, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been measured at 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and weighing in at about 80,000 metric tons, according to a study by The Ocean Cleanup.
Microplastics can come from a variety of sources in addition to discarded waste.
“Microfibers” are tiny pieces of debris created from synthetic-based clothing, such as nylon and polyester. These microfabrics are often too small to be filtered out by washing machines, leading them to be deposited into bodies of water, according to a study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Whatever the material, this creates problems for marine life. Because these pieces of plastic are tiny, they are often mistaken for food by fish and other marine life.
Microplastics pose a threat to marine life in Lake Michigan.
“If you look at marine wildlife food chains, in particular Lake Michigan, we have microorganisms that are either like an algae or phytoplankton or higher up, zooplankton, which are typically crustaceans that eat the algae, and then small fish, young fish typically feed on zooplankton,” said Jay Wesley, a Lake Michigan basin coordinator for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division.
“What these microplastics and beads represent to a zooplankton or small fish, they think it’s food,” Wesley said. “If they are consuming that and not getting calories or energies from it, it’s usually wasted energy. If they fill their bellies with it thinking they’re getting good nutrition, it could affect their growth. Their growth rates might go down or they may not get enough nutrition at all and could die from it.”
Aside from creating problems for the nutritional intake of marine life, opinions are divided about other possible effects of microplastics on marine life.
“We don’t know whether it has any other effects with them, it could plug their digestive systems, but there [have not] been good studies on that yet,” Wesley said. “We don't know if they’re absorbing any of the plastics and getting other health problems, like cancer or tumors. But certainly if a fish is eating plastic and not a real crustacean, it could have some impact.”
Wesley said accidental ingestion of plastic by human consumption of fish is not generally thought of as an issue because the bellies of most fish consumed by humans are removed during preparation.
“The fish we typically eat are the walleye, the salmon, the trout. So it affects the younger fish eating the plankton, but once they get beyond that stage, it probably has little effect on them,” Wesley said. “I don’t think it would have that big of an effect on a human consumer. Plus, most people don’t eat the whole fish, so if [fish] do have plastics in their belly, [people are] not eating that, they’re only eating the filets, the flesh.”
Regardless, the plastics found in the Great Lakes contribute to the issue of plastic contamination in the ocean.
“All the Great Lakes flow over to Niagara Falls and out the St. Lawrence Seaway, so whatever is in that water can certainly get out to the ocean,” Wesley added.
Among the many types of waste that pollute large bodies of water, one is hardly noticeable at first.
“Microplastics are all over the planet at this point,” said Mary Bohling, Sea Grant educator with Michigan State University Extension.
“It depends on the type of plastic. Some of the softer plastics will break down easier and in a shorter time period than the harder plastics, but most plastics are a several hundred years’ breakdown [process].”
A process that begins when a piece of plastic is blown loose from a landfill, nonchalantly tossed away, or washed down a storm drain. Eventually, this plastic may end up in a body of water.
“People litter, but beyond that, the waste that winds up in water systems is put there because someone is breaking a law. An operator is breaking a law or it’s ending up there because we don’t have good technologies for keeping what we now understand as waste in the waterways,” said Sarah Hill, associate professor of environment and sustainability at Western Michigan University.
Even with landfills successfully holding waste, biodegradable materials do not fare much better than non-organic ones.
“Nothing really biodegrades in landfills,” Hill said. “The point of a landfill is to contain material and keep it from oozing out or gassing out. It’s a sealed environment that does not allow a lot of decomposition because in order to make use of the space, landfill operators pack that stuff in there very tightly. In an anaerobic environment, there’s not much decomposition at all.
Depending on where you stick something, it’s not [going to] decompose regardless of what the material is.”
Another source of plastic debris can come from stormwater drains that wash waste out to larger bodies of water.
“Stormwater runoff in general is a pretty big driver of plastic pollution in all sorts of water bodies, I would say,” said Jeff Spoelstra, director of the Office for Sustainability at Western Michigan University
But, the plastic does not simply disappear when it hits the water -- it deteriorates until it is either eaten, cleaned out, washed ashore or moved to other currents, according to a study published in Science.
Eventually, plastics are carried out by currents to join large concentrated areas of plastic waste offshore, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Previously thought of as an island, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is more of a toxic “smog” of trillions of microplastics, according to The Ocean Cleanup, a non-profit group focused on cleaning up plastic ocean waste. Since March 2018, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been measured at 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic and weighing in at about 80,000 metric tons, according to a study by The Ocean Cleanup.
Microplastics can come from a variety of sources in addition to discarded waste.
“Microfibers” are tiny pieces of debris created from synthetic-based clothing, such as nylon and polyester. These microfabrics are often too small to be filtered out by washing machines, leading them to be deposited into bodies of water, according to a study published in Marine Pollution Bulletin.
Whatever the material, this creates problems for marine life. Because these pieces of plastic are tiny, they are often mistaken for food by fish and other marine life.
Microplastics pose a threat to marine life in Lake Michigan.
“If you look at marine wildlife food chains, in particular Lake Michigan, we have microorganisms that are either like an algae or phytoplankton or higher up, zooplankton, which are typically crustaceans that eat the algae, and then small fish, young fish typically feed on zooplankton,” said Jay Wesley, a Lake Michigan basin coordinator for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division.
“What these microplastics and beads represent to a zooplankton or small fish, they think it’s food,” Wesley said. “If they are consuming that and not getting calories or energies from it, it’s usually wasted energy. If they fill their bellies with it thinking they’re getting good nutrition, it could affect their growth. Their growth rates might go down or they may not get enough nutrition at all and could die from it.”
Aside from creating problems for the nutritional intake of marine life, opinions are divided about other possible effects of microplastics on marine life.
“We don’t know whether it has any other effects with them, it could plug their digestive systems, but there [have not] been good studies on that yet,” Wesley said. “We don't know if they’re absorbing any of the plastics and getting other health problems, like cancer or tumors. But certainly if a fish is eating plastic and not a real crustacean, it could have some impact.”
Wesley said accidental ingestion of plastic by human consumption of fish is not generally thought of as an issue because the bellies of most fish consumed by humans are removed during preparation.
“The fish we typically eat are the walleye, the salmon, the trout. So it affects the younger fish eating the plankton, but once they get beyond that stage, it probably has little effect on them,” Wesley said. “I don’t think it would have that big of an effect on a human consumer. Plus, most people don’t eat the whole fish, so if [fish] do have plastics in their belly, [people are] not eating that, they’re only eating the filets, the flesh.”
Regardless, the plastics found in the Great Lakes contribute to the issue of plastic contamination in the ocean.
“All the Great Lakes flow over to Niagara Falls and out the St. Lawrence Seaway, so whatever is in that water can certainly get out to the ocean,” Wesley added.
|
|
Infographic: Will Kriss
|