Imagine you’re a frog hopping along by a pond, looking for a snack. You happen to see something small and white floating on the water’s surface, looks tasty-it could be a bug! GULP!
Unfortunately, you just ate a microplastic, specifically the kind that results from styrofoam breaking down in the sun. It has no nutritional value and could even be harboring toxins that get absorbed into your bloodstream. Because it has no nutritional value you could eat it until your stomach is full, but still starve.
What are microplastics?
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Chemicals Agency define them as fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm in length. To put that in context for inch users, 6mm is almost 1/4 inch. They are very small pieces of plastic that are introduced into ecosystems and all of their inhabitants. Many microplastics harbor chemicals and toxins that can leach out during digestion. Which becomes problematic when they are bioaccumulated. Zooplankton eat the a microplastic or get caught in them, fish eats the zooplankton and we eat the fish! That’s starting to sound scary! Did you know microplastics have even been found in the placentas of unborn babies? Check out the article here. That is scary.
5 types of microplastics
- Fibers: small fibers from synthetic clothing. Every time you wash a polyester clothing article it sloughs off fibers that head to the wastewater treatment plant. The plants are not build to filter out the fibers so they go straight into the Great Lakes.
- Microbeads: plastic particles that are less than 1mm. They are in many personal care products such as: toothpaste, face wash and exfoliating soaps. They are so small they pass through the treatment plants and into our Great Lakes.
- Fragments: smaller pieces of plastic that have broken off larger ones. The sun breaks plastic into smaller pieces but it never biodegrades.
- Nurdles: small plastic pellets used for manufacturing.
- Foam: smaller pieces of Styrofoam.
How to identify them
Check for “poly” in the ingredients list of toothpaste, face wash and exfoliating soaps. If your toothpaste has sparkles in it, thats plastic..
How to help
When purchasing personal care products, take the extra time to read the ingredients. Avoid the “poly”s as best you can. Make sure the your trash ends up in the trash, take the time to secure it(bag or bin) to decrease the chance of some getting loose. If you see some litter, please pick it up. Chances are if you don’t neither will the next person and it will end up in our Great Lakes.
I haven’t found a good solution to decreasing the amount of microplastic fibers introduced to the water via treatment plants, other than to try to buy more cotton clothes. If you have a solution please let me know!(Do they make dry shampoo for clothes?) Some of my favorite sweaters are polyester.
Try to limit the amount of plastic in your house, use bamboo or steel straws vs plastic (I found if you quick rinse the bamboo straw in water before use it doesn’t add bamboo flavor for the first few sips). Say no to straws at restaurants, bring your own to-go container(I definitely need to work on this, I don’t go out to eat much and when I do I forget to bring a container!). Use silicone lids instead of saran wrap.
Bamboo utensil set and straws 
Utensil set 
Silicone lids 
Pull the tabs to adjust for a water tight fit 
Reusable ziplocks 
My personal substitute for exfoliating face wash
Use reusable shopping and produce bags. Unfortunately, when I order my groceries online for pickup I don’t get the option to use my own bags or even paper. I tried emailing Mejier customer service but I don’ think I was annoying enough.
Recycle what you can! Not all resource recovery facilities accept the same things. Find out what yours can accept and recycle!
Little Steward activity ideas
Ok, so I love love playing the bioaccumulation game with leis but that’s rather challenging at this point in time. I will do a post on it at a later date(yes I have a running list going).
Things you can actually do right now
- Teach your Little Stewards about the 5 types of microplastics
- go on a walk and see if you can find one of each type
- Gather as many personal care products as you can, try to have a few with and without microplastics in them
- teach your Little Stewards the magic word (“poly”) to look for and avoid
- You can do this at the store, if the toothpaste they like has microplastic in it then teach them about it and help them choose a plastic-free alternative
- Sign up for a beach or park clean up
- Ask them how you can limit the amount of plastic in your home, please share what they say!