Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology studying the concentration of plastics in the Great Lakes estimate that some 10,000 metric tons of the stuff enters the lakes every year from the U.S. and Canada.
The RIT School of Mathematical Sciences decided to track how those plastic items flow through the lakes and where the water concentrates them. They found the 22 million pounds of plastic debris accounts for 80 percent of the trash that washes up on the shores of the Great Lakes. Lake Ontario gets 1,400 metric tons a year, which adds up to 28 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles every year.
Professor Matthew Hoffman says the big cities on the lakes are the source of most plastic pollution, but wind and waves carry it from north to south. Much of the plastic from Toronto ends up around Rochester and Sodus Bay.
RIT’s first of its kind study is being published shortly in a major marine journal.