Plastic Pollution

How Plastic Pollution Harms Water

Two volunteers help remove plastic trash from a beach and place it in a trash bag.

More than 22 million pounds of plastic pollution ends up in the Great Lakes every year, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology, and it never really goes away. Instead, it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces known as “microplastics.”

Microplastics have been detected in water around the world, including our streams, rivers, lakes and oceans. In these waterways, the microplastics end up in the water we drink and the fish we eat, including shellfish.

Wildlife is harmed when plastic is tangled in a limb, neck or other body parts. Wildlife often mistakes plastic for food. Once the plastic is eaten, it cannot be digested and ends up harming the animal by lodging in the gut. Plastic bags also suffocate animals.

Plastics also leech into the water, degrading the water quality with toxic compounds and harming human and animal health.

Discarded plastic bags from our throw-away society end up blocking storm drains and culverts, impeding the flow of water and worsening bank erosion.

Seagull holding plastic chip bag on the beach.

The best solution is to avoid plastic by bringing reusable bags to the grocery store, switching from disposable to reusable drinking bottles, using a ceramic coffee mug, bringing a reusable container to the deli, and reducing your consumption of single-use plastic bags, straws, cups and other items.