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Verify: Are straws the biggest Great Lakes pollutant?

Plastic is the most common type of marine debris in our ocean and Great Lakes.

MUSKEGON, Mich. - With companies, such as Starbucks, joining the movement to ban plastic straws which are a known pollutant in oceans, we wanted to know if they also affect Michigan.

13 ON YOUR SIDE spoke with an expert studying the issue about whether straws are the number one contaminant in the Great Lakes.

Plastic is the most common type of marine debris in our ocean and Great Lakes, according to the National Ocean Service.

“These plastics break down. They could start off as big buoys," said Alan Steinman, Allen and Helen Hunting Director and Professor of Annis Water Resources Institute at Grand Valley State University.

It can be anything that is made of plastic, such as water bottles, plastic bags or straws.

“That eventually degrade and form these small particles that we call microplastics, less than five millimeters in diameter,” Steinman said.

And they can potentially pose problems.

“They could clog the fish's digestive system," Steinman said. "Or secondly, these plastics are very absorptive. They're like a sponge and they’ll absorb organic chemicals into them. And those chemicals might be toxic."

They might be toxic to the fish.

“Or they may be toxic to the organisms the fish eat, and then when we eat the fish, it could be problematic to humans as well," he said. "We simply don't know, those studies are now being done."

When you look at the overall sources of plastic in the Great Lakes, straws don’t amount to much.

“I would say it’s less than 1 percent," he said.

So we can Verify straws are not the biggest pollutant in the Great Lakes.

“Even though it may not make a huge difference in terms of the ecology of the Great Lakes, every little step helps,” Steinman said.

The major source of microplastics in the lakes might not be something you’d expect.

“Microfibers coming off of clothes because they’re not treated by the wastewater treatment system," Steinman said. "And every washing cycle we do ends up causing more and more of these fibers to come off of our clothes and get into our waste stream.”

But in terms of pollutants overall, he says microplastics are a relatively minor problem.

“In comparison to invasive species, in comparison to nutrient runoff stimulating harmful algal blooms, and in terms of habitat destruction,” Steinman said.

But he said there are things you can do every day to reduce the amount of disposable plastics that end up in the water, like drinking out of a reusable water bottle, and avoiding plastic bags and straws.

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