Great Lakes clean-up targets plastic pellets polluting waterways

This weekend, thousands of volunteers will descend on Great Lakes beaches as part of the second annual International Pellet Count. Preproduction pellets, also known as nurdles, are the polystyrene feedstock used in manufacturing plastic products. About the size of a grain of cooked rice, nurdles are made from fossil fuels and a laundry list of harmful chemicals, including phthalates, Bisphenol A, or BPA, flame retardants, heavy metals and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or, PFAS.

The raw material eventually devolves into microplastic pollution. Nurdles also attract, concentrate and transport harmful chemicals within the environment, where they can leach out and enter the food chain.

To illustrate the extent of the problem, volunteers across America, with a particular focus here in the Great Lakes, are hosting nurdle counts and clean-up events at their local waterways Saturday. The goal is to help identify plastic pellet pollution and make the case for action.

It is long past time that we demand accountability from those in the plastics industry that are carelessly transporting nurdles without appropriate safeguards. As recently as January, a tanker truck in Michigan skipped the manufacturing middleman and crashed in a blizzard. The ruptured tanker spilled several thousand pounds of nurdles on the highway and into the Kalamazoo River. The spill is less than four miles upriver from where the Kalamazoo feeds into Lake Michigan.

Disturbingly, this was not an isolated incident.

“We’ve had those spills before on the highway — not uncommon,” Saugatuck Township Fire Chief Greg Janik told an MLive reporter.

A 2018 University of Western Ontario study looked at 66 beaches in each Great Lakes state and Ontario and found 42 beaches contaminated with nurdle pellets. Preproduction nurdle pellets were the most common piece of plastic pollution collected by volunteers in a 2025 global coastal survey.

Polluting with impunity

The cavalier attitude the plastics industry has toward handling nurdles and their adverse impact on the environment underscores the free pass they have to pollute with impunity. If these pellets were in liquid form, they would be considered an oil or chemical spill, and industry would be held accountable. Due to regulatory loopholes, the industry is not held properly accountable for the toxic pollutants from nurdles that end up in our waterways.

Thankfully, some lawmakers are waking up to this chronic problem. At the national level, U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, and U.S. Rep. Mike Levin, D-California, have introduced the Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act. The bill would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to use its existing authority under the Clean Water Act to prohibit the discharge of plastic pellets and other pre-production plastic into waterways.

In Illinois, House Rep. Joyce Mason and state Sen. Julie Morrison introduced a bill similar to Durbin’s, instructing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to adopt rules to regulate preproduction plastic pellets. While in Michigan, where the latest spill occurred, a pair of bills aim to monitor drinking water for the presence of microplastics while deploying scientific tools and strategies to keep our drinking water free from toxic plastic pollution.

It’s been widely reported that 86% of the litter the Alliance’s Adopt-a-Beach volunteers pick up from Great Lakes beaches is either fully or partially plastic. These plastics don’t break down in the environment. They only get smaller and smaller.

Microplastics are now found in the water in all the Great Lakes, as well as in fish, birds and humans. There is mounting scientific evidence of the devastating impacts plastic pollution has on the Great Lakes from drinking water to aquatic life. The threat is so severe that scientists issued an urgent call for action in the Lancet last summer to protect human health.

People who love the Great Lakes are taking notice, too. A recent poll from Oceana revealed an overwhelming number of voters want action. Eighty-two percent of U.S. voters support reducing the amount of single-use plastic state and federal governments buy and use. Eighty percent of U.S. voters support state and local policies that reduce single-use plastic foam.

Instead of relying on dedicated volunteers to do their work for them, the ultimate solution would be for the plastic industry to be accountable for the pollution it produces in its pursuit of profits. But if plastic companies refuse to take responsibility for protecting our health and our Great Lakes, the only recourse is stricter regulation at the state and federal levels.

Andrea Densham is director of regional government affairs for the Alliance for the Great Lakes, a nonpartisan nonprofit.