August 11, 2013 — For years we've been freaking out about the Asian carp making their way up the Illinois River while another insidious scourge was invading our fresh water supply. Who knew the Great Lakes were being threatened by exfoliating facial scrubs?
Plastic microbeads — some of them fractions of a millimeter long — have been found in water samples from lakes Superior, Huron and Erie. The California researchers who collected them plan to troll lakes Michigan and Ontario next.
The beads are abrasive particles found in everything from toothpaste to liquid hand soaps to industrial cleaners. Lather up, and they provide an invigorating scrub that unclogs pores, removes dead cells and reveals a sparkling new you.
But the beads don't dissolve. They're designed to wash down the drain — after which they make their way into the water treatment system and eventually to our lakes or oceans, where they remain for who knows how long. Worse, they absorb and retain chemical contaminants.
Fish and other water creatures ingest them, either because they look like food or because they're so small they just get sucked in with the plankton or whatever else is for lunch. The pellets — and the contaminants — get passed up the food chain until they land on our plates disguised as pecan-crusted walleye.
Read the full editorial at the Chicago Tribune