© 2024 Western New York Public Broadcasting Association

140 Lower Terrace
Buffalo, NY 14202

Mailing Address:
Horizons Plaza P.O. Box 1263
Buffalo, NY 14240-1263

Buffalo Toronto Public Media | Phone 716-845-7000
WBFO Newsroom | Phone: 716-845-7040
Your NPR Station
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Environmentalists address plastics pollution in Great Lakes

ANGELICA A. MORRISON / A used water bottle floats in a creek in the Great Lakes watershed.
ANGELICA A. MORRISON
ANGELICA A. MORRISON / A used water bottle floats in a creek in the Great Lakes watershed.

Every year, hundreds of volunteers work to clear plastic bags and other garbage from areas along the Great Lakes and its tributaries.Angelica A. Morrison reports

It’s an effort that takes place through the Alliance for the Great Lakes. The group leads clean-up events in cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

ANGELICA A. MORRISON / A used water bottle floats in a creek in the Great Lakes watershed.
Credit ANGELICA A. MORRISON
ANGELICA A. MORRISON / A used water bottle floats in a creek in the Great Lakes watershed.

This year, the group's workers collected 431 plastic bags in the western New York region.  Across the Great Lakes Basin, over 15,000 single-use plastic bags.

"So it’s definitely a part of the problem," said Nate Drag, who spearheads the group's program in Western New York. "There’s a lot of other plastic stuff out there. I wouldn’t say bags are the number one item but they’re there and they’re visible and they can entangle wildlife.

"When you go to the beach and you see visible debris like that, it discourages people from being stewards of the beach. It discourages people from coming back to the beach. It has a social and economic impact as well as ecological."

Drag says about 39,000 pounds of trash was collected across the Great Lakes states this year.

A community discussion about bags and other plastic pollution will take place at 6 p.m., Dec. 14, at the Tewksbury Lodge, 249 Ohio Street in Buffalo. Update: the discussion has been canceled due to the snowstorm.

Copyright 2016 Great Lakes Today

Angelica A. Morrison
Angelica A. Morrison is a multimedia journalist with over a decade of experience in the field.
Related Content