Microplastics: A puzzle along Lake Champlain

At first glance, Burlington's Blanchard Beach is devoid of eyesores.

Rachael Miller wants us to slow down, look more closely and reconsider.

On Monday morning, the Granville resident descended to the Queen City's coastline for a gander at fragments of plastic that measure no larger than a pencil eraser (5 mm).

Why sweat the small stuff?

In part, because those bits, commonly termed "microplastics," are so easily overlooked — and so devilishly hard to gather, Miller said.

Furthermore, small, unmarked pieces of plastic are virtually impossible to recycle.

"A water bottle will turn into 55,000 pieces of 1mm microplastic," Miller said. "How awesomely easy is it to pick up one bottle that escaped a picnic. By getting it into a recycling stream, you're closing a materials loop."

Burlington is the epicenter of microplastics in the sediment along Lake Champlain, according to a recently released study by Rozalia Project, the ocean-health advocacy nonprofit Miller co-founded.

That makes "New England's West Coast" an ideal location for further study, Miller said, and fertile ground for citizen science.

"Our study is a first step," she continued. "We've established a baseline. We know enough to take action. We know what it takes to make it stop, and to prevent it.

"We could argue that all trash that's on the ground here — if it's not marine debris at the moment, it is marine debris-to-be," Miller said. "The lake is downhill from all our rivers and mountains, and it connects to the ocean. The ocean is downhill from everything."

Micro goes macro

Microplastics found along Burlington's shoreline correspond precisely with the sort found in Boston Harbor, Miller added.

Does the presence of such inconspicuous detritus present an environmental hazard?

Rozalia doesn't have the laboratory resources to make that determination.

But Miller shares a consensus with global scientists: Wind- and wave-swept, degraded plastic remnants of our society have accumulated to a disconcerting degree in the Earth's oceans.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, acknowledges the mechanical disruption of larger pieces of plastic to aquatic life (entanglement is a big problem, as is disruption to digestive tracts).

More data are needed before the impacts of microplastic ocean debris can be stated with confidence, according to a 2012 NOAA study.

That document cites in its appendix some stressors to marine life which, although unproven, are backed by enough data to be "plausible."

Among the plausible risks listed by NOAA: Aquatic species are known to feed on plastic fragments, which absorb (or are coated with) plastic-bound industrial toxins, pharmaceuticals and antibiotics.

That collection of risks is a legitimate concern, Miller said, because toxins typically build up as they pass through the food chain (a process known as biomagnification), and microplastics could threaten multiple species' health.

Our toss-aways might, in other words, eventually come back to bite us.

The issue has no easy fix and is far from black and white, Miller said, because the abrupt absence from plastics from medical facilities or food-packaging "would be a nightmare" scenario.

"But it's important to say that if we're going to have the benefits of plastic, we have to be responsible enough to know its risks," she added.

Pecking away

On Blanchard Beach, over the course of an hour, Miller conducted what she called an "opportunistic pick-up" — a free-form, hunt-and-peck — as opposed to a methodical, scientific survey.

She stooped to gather and bag all kinds and sizes of cast-offs, from spent shotgun shells to balloon ribbons and glass fragments.

"It's equal-opportunity debris-gathering," Miller joked.

Her advice for trash-gathering, organized or otherwise: Wear sensible, sturdy boots; wear gloves; "leave anything at all that looks sketchy or medical. Needles on syringes, for instance, can puncture plastic garbage bags and pose risks to collectors."

Even so, Miller sounds upbeat, particularly at the prospect of increasing work with the municipality and with a fresh cadre of volunteers.

"When people do a cleanup together — especially when there's data involved, where there's a concrete measure of success — it's fun," she said. "You feel good. You have the unequivocal evidence that things are a little better."

Among the sand grains, Miller eyeballed a sesame seed-sized resin pellet — the sort that is shipped in bulk to manufacturers.

Could she trace it?

Miller could not. They seem to turn up everywhere.

But, she noted, as recently as 2005, Specialty Filaments (a bristle factory) operated close to Burlington's waterfront.

Then Miller moved on to examine other, slightly larger pieces of trash.

She turned to a reporter and a photographer who had tagged along.

"I have very happily ruined all of your future beach experiences," Miller said. "And we'll all be better off for it."

Contact Joel Banner Baird at 660-1843 or joelbaird@FreePressMedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/vtgoingup.