U-W team looking at impact of microbeads

NDP MP Megan Leslie is asking the federal government to list microbeads, tiny plastic flakes often found in cosmetics, as a potential toxic substance.

A team at the University of Waterloo has been looking into the environmental effects of these beads.

Philippe Van Cappellen, professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Waterloo says this type of legislation is not uncommon.

“Similar legislation has been introduced and adopted in several states in the United States. Several European countries have also introduced bans on the use of microbeads. What we also see is some personal care industries are actually imposing a voluntary ban on microbeads and looking for substitutes.”

They found Lake Erie has the highest concentration of plastic debris among all the Great Lakes, higher even than Lake Geneva, which has more than three times the surrounding population density.

Van Cappellen says these microbeads are dangerous because they can easily spread throughout the environment.

“When they get into the aquatic environment, so when they get into streams, into rivers, into lakes, and oceans, because they’re so small they can be transported very far away. So they can actually act as a vector of pollutants even in great distances from their source.”

He adds the beads are so small, they have a very good chance of making their way back onto our plates, so far the toxicological effect on humans is unknown.

Results also show certain areas of the Great Lakes have suspended plastics concentrations as high as those found in the so-called garbage patches accumulating within large oceanic gyres.