Trip ended with groundbreaking research on plastic pollution in Great Lakes.
Sherri "Sam" Mason, 44, is a professor of chemistry and chairs the Department of Geology and Environmental Science at the State University of New York in Fredonia, New York. She conducted groundbreaking research on plastic pollution in the Great Lakes while aboard the Brig Niagara in 2012 and found high concentrations of microplastics, including in Lake Erie. That research led to the Microbeads-Free Water Act of 2015. She is now a globally recognized expert on freshwater plastic pollution and a member of a United Nations working group focused on plastic and microplastics in the world's marine environment.
How did your work come to focus on freshwater plastic pollution?
The Brig Niagara in 2010 contacted me and a few other regional universities to start an environmental science cruise on the Great Lakes. I thought it was a fantastic idea. I was an atmospheric chemist. I came on board to talk about how the greatest source of pollution in the Great Lakes is raining down from above. While I was on board, I was watching the water go past the wooden hull and it just kind of reminded me of everything I had seen, heard and read about plastic pollution in the oceans and thinking about the fact that these are inland seas and wondering if anyone's looked at the Great Lakes for plastic. I came back and went into my lab and did a literature review and there was nothing.
As a scientist it was really exciting, I could do this — something that no one has ever done. I (consulted with) the lead instructor Bill Edwards of Niagara University. ... We got a little grant in order to do the work and bring 5 Gyres Institute (people) on board. That's what led to that first study in 2012.
Did you have a 'Eureka' moment?
From the moment we pulled in the very first trawl, I looked down and I saw a little piece of Styrofoam. ... That was the very first thing I saw and I went, "Oh yeah, we're going to find plastic." But we didn't find what you bring in from oceanic voyages — noticeable plastic bags and bottles.
Everyone was like, "Oh, there's nothing there." (But I knew I had seen) that piece of Styrofoam. It took us processing the samples (with hydrogen peroxide) and then I started to see the numbers.
And is most of it visible to your eye?
You can see it, but it's tiny. And picking through it is tedious. A lot of what we find is fibers and the fibers, which you know are in our clothes, they get all tangled together in little balls and we literally have to pull them apart and count each fiber.
So is the life of a scientist as exciting as it sounds?
Like any job, right, there are parts of your job that are the real perks and there is the drudgery. But there is some enjoyment that you get out of that. Going to the sample and looking and thinking about every piece, where did it come from? How did it get here? The thing is, frequently with (microplastics) we can't figure out the origins, because the pieces we are finding are so small and they broke down from something so big.
The research led to Microbeads-Free Water Act of 2015. It prohibited the manufacturing of certain products with microbeads in July 2017 and bans the sale of them beginning in July 2018.
I think the microbeads really took hold because it was one time we could look at something and because it was a perfectly round piece of plastic, (we knew) this did not break down from something bigger. We asked why would we be manufacturing these? ... Microbeads came into my mind because I had heard of awareness being raised in Europe about microbeads.
Like most people, I thought that they went away, that they were made of something natural. I started looking at products and realized, "Oh my God, these are plastic." I would take them and extract them and compare them to the things I was pulling out of the Great Lakes.
From a political or legislative standpoint, if you can connect (the research) to a particular product, then that makes it easy for them to propose legislation.
What was really nice was how quickly it happened. It was unanimous. ... Several states had passed different bills. The cosmetics industry wanted consistency. They did not fight it.
It is kind of overwhelming for consumers to realize clothing fibers and plastics from products we use are so ubiquitous in our waterways. What are the biggest impacts associated with this and what can each of us do to address it?
I tell people to start with the low-hanging fruit. Getting rid of plastic bags from your life is really easy to do. You buy some reusable bags and you keep them in the car. You make a promise to yourself. I have walked out of the grocery store with all of my groceries in the grocery cart, got in my car and bagged them in my bags. You do that enough times and you get embarrassed and then eventually you change your behavior.
You can do the same thing with bottled water.
What I am most concerned about with plastic is that we know it gets into the food chain. Plastic has chemicals in it in order to be manufactured. It has plasticizers. It has colorants. ... It has, oddly enough, flame retardants. ... These flame retardants are hormone mimics and they create all sorts of problems and they are in everything, including our plastic.
One of the reasons you should not drink bottled water is because it is encased in plastic and that plastic has all sorts of chemicals and before you drink it, those chemicals are leaching into that water. There are tons of studies on this. Anywhere from rocket fuels to xylenes to benzene to flame retardants, all of these things are in that bottled water.
The chemicals from the plastic leach into the water and vice versa. When plastic is in the external environment and it is in water, chemicals that are in the water will adhere into the plastic and that plastic can be ingested, as we have mentioned, the vast majority of the plastics we find are incredibly small, so it is really easy to ingest them.
We did a worldwide study on drinking water — 83 percent of the samples we tested had plastic and anywhere from one to 10 pieces per liter. ... That's thousands of pieces of plastic that each one of us is drinking every day.
That is my biggest concern with plastic, it is transmitting all those chemicals from the external environment into us and we know that those chemicals have human health impacts. Most of them are hormone mimics and the hormones are the chemical messengers of the body. They tell the body what to do and when, and when you mess with those, you mess with all of those systems, so you can have anywhere from linkages to obesity to breast cancer to testicular cancer to ADHD to autism. It is wide-ranging.
What happens when it gets into your body, does it come back out?
Plastic may, we don't really know. It depends upon how small. Plastics have been known to break down to nanoplastics. They are so small, they can make their way through your intestinal tract and across the blood-brain barrier so they end up in our organs. Studies are just now being done, OK, (to determine) what are the impacts on organs. The chemicals, we know (are there). I could test your blood right now and you could test my blood right now. I can tell you we have flame retardants in us. We have pesticides. We have heavy metals. ... (The question is) is how do those chemicals get into us? It can get into us through our food, through our water, and I think that plastics are one of those vectors.
What can we eat and drink? Will a Brita take care of it?
Well, we have to drink water. To be honest, nobody has done any testing. ... We have put out a proposal for funding to do some studies and look at different kinds of filtration methods. I think using your Brita filter is as good as you can get at this point in time.
I don't want people to be afraid to eat and drink. (But we also should not think), "Oh, technology will solve it."
I don't think we can recycle our way out of this problem. I don't think we can filter our way out. ... We are seeing enough information now we need to change our behavior. We had society before disposable plastic. It was not really until the 1970s or 1980s when it took hold. It is not an impossible task to think that we can go back to something different. We can have a very modern progressive society that just does not use disposable plastic, but uses things that decompose.
I am not totally against plastics. I think there are logical uses for plastic. It is an amazing material, but it is a very long-lived material.
My grandmother and my mother have both had their knees replaced. Things like that are typically made out of plastic. They need to be lightweight (and) durable. That is a logical use. The vast majority of plastic is not that.
So how do we ... not use so much plastic, something that is going to affect the ability of our species to continue — because that is really what we are talking about. These chemicals are affecting reproduction in men and women.
There are ways to have a modern society that is not so wasteful. There are jobs to be made doing that.
What is the next step in your research?
What I am working on now, I can't tell you about, it is top secret. (But we are working on a filtering project) ... and we are looking at some other consumables, like beef and cheese, trying to get people to realize the prominence of this and promote action.
I am on a United Nations working group. We are putting together this big white paper — how to standardize and harmonize data from all over the world.
When you say things like I am on a United Nations working group, I should ask, what effect has that Great Lakes research had on your life?
It is huge. I got off the boat after that first excursion and I thought, "This is what I want to do." I had an excitement for this that I never had about anything else I had done. I had so many questions. I never have a shortage of what am I going to do next.
(The work) has had a huge impact and I am able to do what I love. I have traveled all over the world, (to speak and consult with governments.)
I love chemistry ... but it was always about having an impact.
You have put your finger on something that could affect the whole planet and everybody in it.
Yes, the United Nations puts plastic pollution only second to climate change in terms of the ability of our species to survive.
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