 We're proud to provide sustainable apparel & accessories to our LogoWear partners who choose to prevent pollution with the clean comfort of high quality organic cotton and hemp for their brand. View options~ We invite your team to take a leadership role in helping reduce micro-plastic fiber pollution in our Great Lakes Basin & beyond. | A recently released study out of Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis shares the latest evidence regarding micro-plastic pollution in our Great Lakes. Professor Mary Kosuth, conducted the study, a calling to take actions that reduce the amount of plastic we create & consume. Polyester and other petroleum-based fabrics (i.e. acrylic, nylon, acetate) are significant sources of micro-fiber pollution in our Great Lakes, rivers & oceans. Clothes release half a million tons of microfibers in the ocean every year, equivalent to more than 50 billion plastic bottles. Conclusions from the original study: "This investigation reveals troubling amounts of anthropogenic (from human activity) debris in global tap water, North American beer, and internationally sourced sea salt. Particles were found in 81% of tap water samples, as well as in all 12 brands of beer and sea salt. These findings add to a growing body of knowledge about plastic pollution in human consumables" (Kosuth, 2018). Michigan Radio recently shares, "We found in marine environments, at least, these plastic particles are very good at absorbing chemicals from the water," Kosuth said. "So things like PCB, DDT, brominated flame retardents, things like these can actually form a coating on the outside of the plastic particles, which means that we would be ingesting higher amounts of that” (NPR, Michigan Radio). |
Listen to the discussion:
http://michiganradio.org/post/study-your-great-lakes-microbrews-might-come-hint-microplastic
For Kosuth's Study:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0194970
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