Scientists warn of health impacts as Great Lakes plastic pollution grows | Bridge Michigan

As a lifelong West Michigan resident and avid beach walker whose hometown draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan, Arthur Hirsch has always loved spending time along the Great Lakes.  That’s how he spotted something worrying in the water three summers ago.  Thousands of plastic pellets littered the beach’s sandy shore, just a small sampling of the 22 million pounds of plastic waste that enters the Great Lakes annually, much of it in the form of tiny “microplastics” small enough to be ingested or embedded in flesh. Hirsch had discovered nurdles, tiny plastic pellets that are melted down to create products ranging from clothing to water bottles. “I was pissed that this unknown sourced plastic material was polluting Lake Michigan and my beach environment,” said Hirsch, an activist with the West Michigan Chapter of the Climate Reality Project. 

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