Angelica Criden Environmental News #1 BIO/ENV 103 Prof.Coleen Edwards 9/25/15 Article Information: I chose an article from Science Daily. The authors reprinted this story from materials provided by University of Waterloo. The title reads: Disturbingly little known about microbeads, plastics in the Great Lakes. It was published march 24 2015. Summary: Many cosmetic products such as face washes/body washes contain little tiny plastic beads that help exfoliate your skin and add a soft finish to your skin. They are in so many face washes and cleaning products and are advertised to help clear skin and rid it of dirt by helping exfoliate and remove dead skin. The problem is when you wash your face and these little tiny beads get washed down the drain they don’t dissolve. Rather they are ending up in our b water supply and we are finding them on beaches all over the place. Besides the fact that they are polluting the water they are harming the aquatic environments they come in contact with. They stick around for thousands of years and don’t break down easily if at all. One of the scariest things is that they act as sponges for certain pollutions. They are easily ingested by aquatic organisms, which end up on our plates in our homes. The study found that Lake Erie has the highest concentration of plastic debris of all the Great Lakes. So what is being done? Well in Europe and America there have been propositions to ban these microbeads and legislation dealing with helping clean up the water of these harmful little plastic balls but one country not yet on board is Canada. Members of the Water Institute are calling for Canada to “step up” and help take action. The microbeads are the only plastic that is being found in the Great Lakes but it is something that is increasing and as it is doing so researchers are realizing there is very little known about the plastic content located in the Great Lakes, the world’s largest fresh water resource. Hopefully in years to come action will be taken to help stop the use of these microbeads and efforts will be made to clean up the beaches and water itself. Angelica Criden Environmental News #1 BIO/ENV 103 Prof.Coleen Edwards 9/25/15 Personal Response: I had heard a little about this topic before I went out looking for this article. This is horrifying to me and affects me personally because I know I contributed to this environmental issue. I have bought face wash and body wash for years and years that contain these microbeads and truthfully I never thought they would case as much of a problem as they are. I agree that every country who sells these products need to spring into action to help stop this from going further and work hard to help erase the damage that has already been done. This directly affects the living aquatic organisms that live in the Great Lakes. It’s terrifying knowing this is happening right now and the Great Lakes are the world’s largest freshwater supply. It doesn’t make much sense to put harmful pollutants into the world’s largest source of something we absolutely need to survive. It sounds like we are trying to kill ourselves and the organisms around us. The truth about what is going on needs to get out and a bigger deal needs to be made about this. It’s a horror story really. The news needs to cover it, there needs to be campaigns to bring these company’s using them to justice. A fine should be out in place for any product containing them or they need to find a replacement for the microbeads, something biodegradable or not harmful to the environment. I hope in the years to come we will see people taking more action that is being taken now and more laws and regulations put in place. I also hope we see more people working to clean and restore the Great Lakes and the beaches around them.
