A big challenge to the health of the Great Lakes takes a tiny form: microplastics, pieces of plastic no larger than 5 millimeters in size, or about the size of a pencil eraser. They have been documented throughout the lakes, in oceans, and even in tap and bottled water, sea salt and other products we eat and drink.
Microplastics’ many forms include beads, fragments, pellets, film, foam and fibers. They can be created when larger plastic items break up in sun and wave action over time, or they can be intentionally manufactured, as in microbeads and pellets. In a study of
