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Personal Grooming Products May Be Harming Great
Lakes Marine Life
Could removing dead skin cells from your face each night mean doom for perch and other Great Lakes
species?
By Christopher Johnston | June 25, 2013
Courtesy of Lorena Rios
Three of the five Great Lakes—Huron, Superior and Erie—are awash in plastic. But
it's not the work of a Christo-like landscape artist covering the waterfront. Rather,
small plastic beads, known as micro plastic, are the offenders, according to survey
results to be published this summer in Marine Pollution Bulletin. "The highest
counts were in the micro plastic category, less than a millimeter in diameter,"
explained chemist Sherri "Sam" Mason of the State University of New York at Fredonia, who led the Great
Lakes plastic pollution survey last July. "Under the scanning electron microscope, many of the particles
we found were perfectly spherical plastic balls."
Cosmetics manufacturers use these micro beads, or micro exfoliates, as abrasives in facial and body
scrubs. They are too tiny for water treatment plants to filter, so they wash down the drain and into the
Great Lakes. The biggest worry: fish such as yellow perch or turtles and seagulls think of them as dinner.
If fish or birds eat the inert beads, the material can deprive them of nutrients from real food or get lodged
in their stomachs or intestines, blocking digestive systems.
In early April, at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in New
Orleans, chemist Lorena Rios of the University of Wisconsin–Superior, announced that her team found
1,500 to 1.7 million plastic particles per square mile (2.5 square kilometers) in the lakes, with the highest
concentration in Lake Erie. Rios is collaborating on the study with Mason and 5 Gyres Institute, a Los
Angeles-based research group studying garbage patches in five subtropical gyres in the Atlantic, Pacific
and Southern oceans.
Typically, the oceans contain a higher percentage of debris in the one- to five-millimeter-diameter size,
whereas, for unknown reasons, the three Great Lakes the team studied have a higher concentration,
approximately 85 percent, of micro plastics measuring less than one millimeter in diameter.
Rios did not find any plastic in the fish samples she tested, but they were all from Lake Superior, which
has less of a problem because of the way water flows through the lakes. "Lake Superior had a little less
plastic than Lake Huron, which was far less than Lake Erie," Rios says. "So, it will be really interesting to
see [this summer] if the counts in Lake Ontario [downstream from Erie] are even higher."
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Fairport Fisheries Research Station has found plastic
in yellow perch during their ongoing diet-analysis studies, according to Rios. Although they have not
published any data about plastic in the fish guts, they will begin sending fish to her for analysis. "This
summer, we're going to look for the presence of plastics in the diet, and if we find any, send it to Dr. Rios
to confirm the type of polymers in the plastics," confirms fish biologist Ann Marie Gorman of the Fairport
Harbor Fish Research Unit.
Rios's background includes studying plastic debris and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Pacific
garbage patch. Her chemical analysis of the Lake Erie samples revealed varying levels of polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the product of incomplete combustion usually found near steel mill
coking plants or from burning wood or petroleum products. In the mix was also polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs) and other organochlorides such as the potent and poisonous insecticide DDT. PCBs were used in
electric transformers and motors, until Congress banned them from production in 1979 because of their
ability to cause cancer in humans.
Rios reports that the bits of plastic, essentially "solid oil," absorb the chemicals like a sponge. The
concentration of PAHs in Lake Erie is twice as high as that in the Atlantic because the ocean’s size dilutes
the little pellets.
The pollutants can remain in the environment for more than 50 years and can accumulate in fish and
other organisms, proceeding up the food chain on ingestion by other species. PAHs can cause DNA
damage in organisms that accumulate higher concentrations, which, in turn, can lead to cancer or
physiological impairment. PCBs can cause cardiac problems, skeletal deformities and neurological
deficiencies. Some of the compounds are classified as endocrine disrupters, meaning they affect hormone
levels and systems in plants, animals and even people. "We don't know what's going on yet with the fish or
the organisms eating the plastic with these pollutants in the Great Lakes," Rios says. "I plan to study
whether the endocrine system of the fish is damaged and whether the problem stops there or moves up
the food chain in harmful amounts all the way to humans." She also plans to study what happens to the
compounds after the fish die.
The first research of its kind in the Great Lakes was preceded by studies demonstrating that plastic and
micro plastics in the oceans has immediate and long-term impact on marine life small and large,
including filter-feeders such as clams and mussels. POPs can be passed via mother's eggs, Rios says,
impairing the most sensitive life stage of embryos and larval fish when even minor health problems
reduce survival rates.
Fish gut analysis by the ODNR has found plastic wrapped around fish intestines. Mason says a fisherman
sent her a photo of a fish from Mexico Bay off Lake Ontario that got caught in a plastic ring when it was
younger; as the fish grew, the ring constrained its growth as if it were a corset.
During this summer's follow-up studies in lakes Erie, Michigan and Ontario, along with the Saint
Lawrence River, Mason and her colleagues will continue to examine the way in which sunlight breaks
down the plastics, causing chemicals to escape into the water as well as try to locate more exact sources of
plastic pollution. "You can almost never identify what product or where the source of micro plastics is out
to sea," explains Marcus Eriksen, executive director of the 5 Gyres Institute. "But in the Great Lakes we
can." Because the lakes are a smaller, confined geographic area, he explains, it's easier to determine more
accurate waste characterization from samples or identify possible sources of polluted effluent than in the
vast, open oceans.
This doesn't mean people should stop washing their faces or bodies. Ericksen and others are pleading the
case with the cosmetics manufacturers to replace the plastic micro beads with natural exfoliating
materials, such as pumice, oatmeal, apricot or walnut husks, that cosmetics companies like Burt's Bees or
St. Ives already employ in their products.
Recently, thanks to 5 Gyres Institute's campaign to convince corporations with partners Plastic Soup
Foundation and Plastic Free Seas, the Body Shop and L'Oreal announced that they have discontinued
using plastic micro beads in their facial and body cleansers. The groups also worked closely with Johnson
& Johnson, which just announced that it will cease using micro beads in all of its products. Unilever
announced that it will stop using micro beads by 2015. Once the team's paper is published this summer,
Ericksen hopes to reconvene with Proctor & Gamble to convince that corporation to reconsider replacing
the micro beads in their products. "We have the evidence that the micro plastics do cause harm," he says.
"I am hoping we can translate that research into some positive action."
Orangutans fight for survival as thirst for
palm oil devastates rainforests
Palm oil plantations are destroying the Sumatran apes' habitat, leaving just
200 of the animals struggling for existence
Even in the first light of dawn in the Tripa swamp forest of Sumatra it
is clear that something is terribly wrong. Where there should be lush
foliage stretching away towards the horizon, there are only the
skeletons of trees. Smoke drifts across a scene of devastation. Tripa is
part of the Leuser Ecosystem, one of the world's most ecologically
important rainforests and once home to its densest population of
Sumatran orangutans.
As recently as 1990, there were 60,000 hectares of swamp forest in
Tripa: now just 10,000 remain, the rest grubbed up to make way for
palm oil plantations servicing the needs of some of the world's biggest
brands. Over the same period, the population of 2,000 orangutans has
dwindled to just 200. In the face of international
protests, Indonesia banned any fresh felling of forests two years ago,
but battles continue in the courts over existing plantation concessions.
Here, on the edge of one of the remaining stands of forest, it is clear that the destruction is continuing.
Deep trenches have been driven through the peat, draining away the water, killing the trees, which have
been burnt and bulldozed. The smell of wood smoke is everywhere. But of the orangutans who once lived
here, there is not a trace.
This is the tough physical landscape in which environmental campaigners fighting to save the last of the
orangutans are taking on the plantation companies, trying to keep track of what is happening on the
ground so that they can intervene to rescue apes stranded by the destruction. But physically entering the
plantations is dangerous and often impractical; where the water has not been drained away, the ground is
a swamp, inhabited by crocodiles. Where canals have been cut to drain away the water, the dried peat is
thick and crumbly and it is easy to sink up to the knees. Walking even short distances away from the roads
is physically draining and the network of wide canals has to be bridged with logs. The plantations do not
welcome visitors and the Observer had to evade security guards to gain entrance. To overcome these
problems, campaigners have turned to a technology that has become controversial for its military usage
but that in this case could help to save the orangutans and their forest: drones.
Graham Usher, from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, produces a large flight case and
starts to unpack his prized possession, a polystyrene Raptor aircraft with a two-meter wingspan and
cameras facing forward and down. "The main use of it is to get real time data on forest loss and confirm
what's going on with fires," he says. They can also use the drone to track animals that have been fitted
with radio collars. "We are getting very powerful images of what is going on in the field," he says. The
footage is helping them to establish where new burning is taking place and which plantations are
potentially breaking the law. Areas of forest where the peat is deeper than three meters should be
protected – the peat is a carbon trap – but in practice many plantations do not measure the depth.
The battle to save the orangutans is not helped
by the readiness of multinational corporations to
use palm oil from unverified sources. Hundreds
of products on US supermarket shelves are made
with palm oil or its derivatives sourced from
plantations on land that was once home to
Sumatran orangutans. Environmental
campaigners say that the complex nature of the
palm oil supply chain makes it uniquely difficult
for companies to ensure that the oil they use has
been produced ethically and sustainably. "One of
the big issues is that we simply don't know where
the palm oil used in products on US supermarket
shelves comes from. It may well be that it came
from Tripa," says Usher.
In October, the Rainforest Foundation singled out Procter and Gamble (particularly its Head and
Shoulders, Pantene and Herbal Essences hair products) for criticism over the use of unsustainable palm
oil. A traffic light system produced using the companies' responses to questions from the Ethical
Consumer group also placed Imperial Leather, Original Source and Estée Lauder hair products in the redlight category. A separate report by Greenpeace accused Procter and Gamble and Mondelez International
(formerly Kraft) of using "dirty" palm oil. The group called on the brands to recognize the environmental
cost of "irresponsible palm oil production". According to the Rainforest Foundation's executive director,
Simon Counsell, part of the problem is that even companies that do sign up to ethical schemes, such as the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, cannot be certain that all the oil they receive is ethically produced
because of the way oil from different plantations is mixed at processing plants.
Driving out of Tripa, the whole area appears to have been given over to palm oil plantations; some longestablished, 20-25ft tall trees in regimented rows, others recently planted. Every now and again there is a
digger, driving a new road into what little forest remains, the first stage of the process that will end with
the forest burned and gone and replaced with young oil palms.
The orangutan victims of clearances are taken to the SOCP's quarantine center to recover. These are the
animals rescued from isolated stands of forest or from captivity. Those that can be will eventually be
released back into another part of the island. Anto, a local orangutan expert, says the spread of the
plantations is fragmenting the remaining forest and isolating the orangutans. "Then people are poaching
the orangutans because it is easy to catch them," he says. "People isolate them in a tree and then they cut
the tree or they make the orangutan so afraid that it climbs down and is caught. After that they can kill it
and sometimes eat it. Or they can trade it."
The effect on Tripa's orangutans has been disastrous. Cut off from the population on the rest of the island,
they teeter on the brink of viability; experts say they really need a population of about 250 to survive long
term and, because orangutans produce offspring only once every six or seven years, it takes a long time to
replenish a depleted population. Those that remain in the forest face other dangers. Some die when the
forest is burned, others starve to death as their food supply is destroyed. If the orangutans did not already
have it tough, there may yet be worse to come: gold has been found in Aceh's remaining forests and
mining is starting. "If there is no government effort to protect the remaining area, we will never know the
orangutans here again," says Anto. "If this continues they will be gone within 10 years."
Loss of Natural Buffers Could Double Number of
People at Risk from Hurricanes
Coastal wetlands and other natural barriers are disappearing, increasing the risk hurricane damage for coastal cities
By Evan Lehmann and ClimateWire | July 15, 2013
If the United States lost its shield of natural coastal defenses, about twice as
many Americans would be exposed to dangerous storm surges and other
hurricane threats, according to new research.
Protective buffers like mangroves, wetlands and oyster beds currently buffer
about 67 percent of the nation's seashores from ocean forces like wind and
waves. If they disappear, more than a million additional people and billions
of dollars in property value will be vulnerable to damage, says a paper
published yesterday in the journalNature Climate Change.
"Habitat loss would double the extent of coastline highly exposed to storms
and sea-level rise, making an additional 1.4 million people now living within 1
km of the coast vulnerable," the paper says.
The project wades into a sensitive topic about the rapid pace of coastal
development in the U.S. by providing what the authors say is the first
national map to outline the risks of seashores that are depleted of their wave-breaking ecosystems.
In addition to documenting the amount of defensive ecosystems in the U.S., the researchers fed data about property
values, population, income and age into a model that tested four sea-level rise scenarios. They found that between 1.7
million and 2.1 million people will live in "high hazard" areas by 2100. Of those, up to 40,000 families will be below
the poverty line and between $400 billion and $500 billion in residential property will be vulnerable to damage.
Currently, about 16 percent of the U.S. coastline is considered high hazard areas, with 1.3 million people, of whom
250,000 are elderly, and $300 billion in residential property value. The authors say their estimates in all likelihood
are lower than what will actually occur, because they don't account for population growth and property value
increases over the 83-year period.
"By quantifying where and to what extent habitats reduce the exposure of vulnerable populations and property, our
analyses are, to the best of our knowledge, the first to target where conservation and restoration of coastal habitats
are most critical for protecting lives and property on a national scale," the paper says.
Fla., N.Y. have problems
Katie Arkema, an ecologist with the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University and a co-author of the paper, said
the research assumes that all natural barriers would disappear to show how individual states, counties and
communities would be affected if it happened.
"That's unrealistic that that would happen, I think, anytime soon around the entire shoreline of the U.S.," Arkema
said. "But it is realistic that that will happen in places throughout our shoreline, especially in places that are
experiencing the most pressure from coastal development."
She noted that it was surprising to see the number of people exposed to risk double under the scenario.
"I never expected for it to be that big of a difference," she said.
The East Coast and Gulf Coast would feel the largest impacts from depleted ecosystems, because they have denser
populations and are more vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surge.
Florida would see the largest increase of people exposed to hazards by 2100 under one sea-level rise scenario
highlighted by the researchers. If coastal habitats were preserved, about 500,000 Floridians would face intermediate
and high risk from disasters, compared with almost 900,000 people if the habitats disappeared.
New York sees one of the biggest jumps as a percentage of people facing risk under the same scenario. With habitat, a
little more than 200,000 people would face high risk, compared with roughly 550,000 people without habitat.
The Natural Capital Project partners with the University of Minnesota, the World Wildlife Fund and the Nature
Conservancy. The findings will be used in part by the Nature Conservancy to help direct federal funding toward
ecosystem restoration and conservation projects that protect the most people and property, Arkema said.
She added that natural barriers are just one strategy in a suite of defensive efforts that also include infrastructure and
requirements to build farther back from the shore.
"We're not trying to say in this paper habitats are the end-all," Arkema said. "What we're trying to say is that they do
provide a lot of power in terms of reducing risk of people and property. If they were to be lost, that would require
either massive investments and hard infrastructure and engineering approaches, or damages and loss of life."
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202628-6500
Should DDT Be Used to Combat Malaria?
DDT should be used "with caution" in combating malaria, a panel of scientists reported today
By Marla Cone and Environmental Health News | May 4, 2009
A panel of scientists recommended today that the spraying of DDT
in malaria-plagued Africa and Asia should be greatly reduced
because people are exposed in their homes to high levels that may
cause serious health effects.
The scientists from the United States and South Africa said the
insecticide, banned decades ago in most of the world, should only
be used as a last resort in combating malaria.
The stance of the panel, led by a University of California
epidemiologist, is likely to be controversial with public health
officials. Use of DDT to fight malaria has been increasing since it
was endorsed in 2006 by the World Health Organization and the
President's Malaria Initiative, a U.S. aid program launched by
former President Bush.
In many African countries, as well as India and North Korea, the pesticide is sprayed inside homes and buildings to
kill mosquitoes that carry malaria.
Malaria is one of the world's most deadly diseases, each year killing about 880,000 people, mostly children in subSaharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization. The 15 environmental health experts, who reviewed
almost 500 health studies, concluded that DDT "should be used with caution, only when needed, and when no other
effective, safe and affordable alternatives are locally available."
We cannot allow people to die from malaria, but we also cannot continue using DDT if we know about the health
risks," said Tiaan de Jager, a member of the panel who is a professor at the School of Health Systems & Public Health
at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "Safer alternatives should be tested first and if successful, DDT should be
phased out without putting people at risk."
The scientists reported that DDT may have a variety of human health effects, including reduced fertility, genital birth
defects, breast cancer, diabetes and damage to developing brains. Its metabolite, DDE, can block male hormones.
"Based on recent studies, we conclude that humans are exposed to DDT and DDE, that indoor residual spraying can
result in substantial exposure and that DDT may pose a risk for human populations," the scientists wrote in their
consensus statement, published online today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. "We are concerned
about the health of children and adults given the persistence of DDT and its active metabolites in the environment
and in the body, and we are particularly concerned about the potential effects of continued DDT use on future
generations."
In 2007, at least 3,950 tons of DDT were sprayed for mosquito control in Africa and Asia, according to a report by the
United Nations Environment Programme. "The volume is increasing slowly," said Hindrik Bouwman, a professor in
the School of Environmental Sciences and Development at North-West University in Potchesfstroom, South Africa,
who also served on the panel. In South Africa, about 60 to 80 grams is sprayed in each household per year, Bouwman
said.
Brenda Eskenazi, a University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health professor and lead author of the
consensus statement, is concerned because the health of people inside the homes is not being monitored. A 2007
study on male fertility is the only published research so far. Conducted in Limpopo, South Africa by de Jager and his
colleagues, the study found men in the sprayed homes had extremely high levels of DDT in their blood and that their
semen volume and sperm counts were low. "Clearly, more research is needed…but in the meantime, DDT should
really be the last resort against malaria, rather than the first line of defense," Eskenazi said. The pesticide accumulates
in body tissues, particularly breast milk, and lingers in the environment for decades.
In the United States, beginning in the1940s, large volumes of DDT were sprayed outdoors to kill mosquitoes and
pests on crops. It was banned in 1972, after it built up in food chains, nearly wiping out bald eagles, pelicans and other
birds.
Today's use differs greatly. In Africa, it is sprayed in much smaller quantities but people are directly exposed because
it is sprayed on walls inside homes and other buildings. Many health studies have been conducted in the United
States, but on people who carry small traces of DDT in their bodies, not the high levels found in people in Africa.
"DDT is now used in countries where many of the people are malnourished, extremely poor and possibly suffering
from immune-compromising diseases such as AIDS, which may increase their susceptibility to chemical exposures,"
said panel member Jonathan Chevrier, a University of California at Berkeley post-doctoral researcher in epidemiology
and in environmental health sciences.
In 2001, more than 100 countries signed the Stockholm Convention, a United Nations treaty which sought to
eliminate use of 12 persistent, toxic compounds, including DDT. Under the pact, use of the pesticide is allowed only
for controlling malaria. Since then, nine nations—Ethiopia, South Africa, India, Mauritius, Myanmar, Yemen,
Uganda, Mozambique and Swaziland—notified the treaty's secretariat that they are using DDT. Five others—
Zimbabwe, North Korea, Eritrea, Gambia, Namibia and Zambia--also reportedly are using it, and six others, including
China, have reserved the right to begin using it, according to a January Stockholm Convention report. "This is a global
issue," Eskenazi said. "We need to enforce the Stockholm Convention and to have a plan for each country to phase out
DDT, and if they feel they can't, good reason why other options cannot work."
Mexico, the rest of Central America and parts of Africa have combated malaria without DDT by using alternative
methods, such as controlling stagnant ponds where mosquitoes breed and using bed nets treated with pyrethroid
insecticides. But such efforts have been less successful in other places, particularly South Africa. When a mosquito
strain that had previously been eliminated returned to South Africa, it was resistant to the pyrethroid insecticides that
had replaced DDT.
"The resulting increase in malaria cases and deaths was epidemic," Bouwman said. Cases soared from 4,117 in 1995 to
64,622 in 2000. "South Africa had to fall back on DDT, and still uses it in areas where other chemicals would have a
risk of failure," he said.
This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health
Sciences, a nonprofit media company.