Water samples taken from Lake Superior show that the Thunder Bay area appears to have a significant amount of plastic pollutants.
The samples were collected in 2014 as part of a fish survey on Lake Superior by an American research team.
Kara Cox, a Collaborative Water Program graduate student in the University of Waterloo's School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, supervised by Water Institute members Simon Courtenay and Derek Armitage, has analyzed the water from 188 different samples taken around the lake. She's found microplastics—defined as being smaller than 5 mm—in each and every sample.
"We expect larger population centres to produce more plastic, but there may also be some sort of current that's pushing plastic into this one area just outside of Thunder Bay."