Photo: Lukas Souza // Unsplash
The prominence of microplastics in our oceans is no big secret. With a large island of trash sitting in the middle of one of them and the tiny little particles of plastic found in every body of water across the planet, researchers are constantly finding new ways to let the public know how big the problem is. A study published this week in the journal Nature, for example, revealed that Lake Tahoe actually has a surprisingly high concentration of microplastics — higher even than the gyres that transport waves of trash to places like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The study filtered samples from 38 lakes across 23 different countries, accounting for microplastics larger than 250 microns. For reference, a single human hair is about 70 microns in diameter, and the human eye can see objects as small as about 40 microns. Every single lake sampled in the study returned varying concentrations of microplastics, proving that the problem extends to freshwater bodies just as much as the ocean. Lake Tahoe ranked third highest on the list of highest concentrations of microplastics.
“Its beauty kind of hides the problem,” Jesse Patterson, chief executive officer for the nonprofit League to Save Lake Tahoe, told the LA Times. “Just because we can’t collectively see it, the science shows there’s an issue and we should respond now before we can see it with our own eyes.”
The findings have different experts and researchers familiar with the project and the area itself theorizing how Lake Tahoe, of all places, has such a striking problem with microplastics. Its watershed size — the area in which water and waste can drain from land into a body of water — is relatively small when compared to other lakes in the study. The lake is also protected relatively well, or so we thought.
Wastewater has been barred from draining into the lake for more than four decades, for example. But the area does see a reported 15 million tourists each year, according to a 2022 report, bringing more than $5 billion in revenue to local businesses. Coupled with a population boom, it’s inevitable that more trash is being distributed in and around the region. And one thing we do know about plastic pollution and microplastics is that it can, and will, find its way into a body of water. According to the Times, researchers plan to study exactly how it’s all making its way into Lake Tahoe now that they have an idea of how prominent the problem is in the area.
