A 240 mile journey is finally complete. Though this may not seem like a long distance by car, think about doing it on a paddleboard. Then consider attempting it during November in upstate NY. This feat is what Christian Shaw and Gordon Middleton completed on November 19th 2015, after a polar vortex of winter weather halted their journey in 2014. They came back with a vengeance, and renewed determination to raise awareness about microbead pollution in the Finger Lakes, Great Lakes, and other waterways of their home state.
This journey started as a way to draw attention to the issue of plastic pollution, and more specifically microplastics and microbeads. In spring 2014 a pending bill in the NYS Legislature was passed overwhelmingly in the Assembly, but shelved and refused to be voted on in the Senate. Even after the 2014 Plastic Tides expedition, which resulted in their film The Canal, and a growing body of microbead research in NYS; history repeated itself again in 2015 as the bill failed to make the Senate floor. This provoked Gordon and Christian, in collaboration with their Plastic Tides Jr Ambassador program to work fervently to pass the legislation, but this time through a more grassroots approach. One by one: Erie, Cattaraguas, Chataqua, Suffolk, Albany and finally their home county of Tompkins passed their own bans, the strongest legislation ever, on products containing plastic microbeads. If the state wouldn't hear their voice, maybe smaller local governments would, and they did. The evidence found right here in New York State was too strong for honest local governments to ignore, especially after the issue was taken up by a group of Middle and High School students whom after becoming Plastic Tides Jr. Ambassadors contacted the local legislature themselves.
Leading the science behind microbeads: Dr. Sam Mason from SUNY Fredonia with cooperation from the NYS AG Office had published findings about microplastics in the Great Lakes and wastewater treatment systems statewide. She found 75% of the pollution in the Great Lakes is from microplastics; pieces you can't see that come from the photodegradation of plastic bags, toothbrushes, and other debris. Twenty percent of this total microplastic pollution is microbeads. These microbeads were found in the effluent from 75% of wastewater treatment plants (n=44) sampled around NY. Plastic Tides had done their own sampling on their first go-round of their Erie Canal trip; finding microbeads in Cayuga Lake, Oneida Lake, the Erie Canal and Mohawk River, and becoming the first group to find microbeads in inland waterways. Microbeads concentrate pollutants, get ingested by animals ranging in size from plankton and mussels to birds and fish, and eventually make it up the food chain to humans. They also leach chemicals known to be endocrine disruptors which are not remediated at the treatment plants.
Plastic Tides is Back!
By Nicole Baker
88 - SEVENSEAS