Plastic Problem

Water Cleaning Device Finding Microplastics in Marina

It’s been about a year since a new piece of technology designed to trap and collect debris in the water was installed along Thunder Bay’s waterfront, and local environmental officials say that microplastics—specifically styrofoam—are showing up in significant quantities.

The city and its marina at the northside waterfront were one of the inaugural sites to be part of the Great Lakes Plastic Cleanup, an initiative that uses technology like the Seabin that’s installed at Prince Arthur’s Landing to remove plastics and other litter at marinas throughout the Great Lakes. The Seabin in Thunder Bay sits in Lake Superior at the marina and takes in surface water, pumps it through the system, and collects any debris that’s also taken in. City staff then empties it daily, with some of the contents set aside for analysis. The goal of the initiative is to prevent pollutants from continuing to enter the Great Lakes. According to the city, researchers estimate that about 10 million kilograms of plastics enter the Great Lakes every year.

“Last year, when it was put in the water, the location wasn’t ideal and we did collect a lot of organic materials,” says Amy Coomes, the sustainability coordinator for the City of Thunder Bay. “This year [...] a lot of the micro-pieces of styrofoam have been turning up in the Seabin, as well as a lot of cigarette butts, so those are two major things that we need to make sure we’re keeping out of our Great Lakes.” The styrofoam collected is often smaller than a person’s pinky fingernail, Coomes says, adding that “once they’re in the water, they can be ingested by

fish, and then from there, birds ingest those fish, so [researchers are] seeing pieces of styrofoam and microplastics are in the wildlife that are […] in and around our aquatic ecosystem.”

Last year, some of the contents of the Seabin were sent to the University of Toronto for analysis. However, starting this year, Lakehead University has joined the initiative as a research partner and has been doing that work under the supervision of Dr. Michael Rennie, the Canada research chair in freshwater ecology and fisheries.

The presence of styrofoam in the lake is likely from things like take-out containers and food packaging, which can break apart and end up in the water, along with other packaging material, Coomes says. “When you’re removing items from packaging, making sure that you’re not disturbing that styrofoam so it breaks off and gets out into the air or into the water is a major aspect of making sure that this stuff doesn’t get into our waterways,” she says. “It might not be something that you think about at the time when you’re taking your barbecue out of the box, but that’s how it’s entering our environment.”

To help keep the big lake clean near the northside waterfront, the city, along with EcoSuperior, organized an education and litter cleanup day in August at Marina Park and along the shoreline, a day that Coomes says was very successful. “We had about 10 bags, full bags, of litter that are no longer at risk of getting into the lake.”