Plastic Beads In Great Lakes Water Again Reported

The NY Times has a disturbing story about tiny plastic pollutant beads in the Great Lakes:

The newest environmental threat to the Great Lakes is very, very small. 

Tiny plastic beads used in hundreds of toiletries like facial scrubs and toothpastes are slipping through water treatment plants and turning up by the tens of millions in the Great Lakes. There, fish and other aquatic life eat them along with the pollutants they carry — which scientists fear could be working their way back up the food chain to humans. 

This looked familiar: 

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 2013 

Researchers Finding Plastics' Great Lakes PollutionDisturbing evidence:

They’re finding tiny, perfectly round beads of plastic in many of the samples, and this might hold another clue about the source of particles. “The cosmetics industry uses plastic micro-beads in soaps, toothpaste and other products. Because the products are not designed for ingestion, they don’t have to test for this. It’s completely unregulated and may be a significant source of micro-plastics finding their way into the environment,” she says....

More research is needed to compare the amount of plastic pollution from one lake to the next...The team plans to sample the St. Lawrence River and Lakes Erie, Michigan, and Ontario this summer, and as funding allows, to carry out more systematic studies of all five lakes.