
The statistics are daunting: 93% of water bottled in the Great Lakes region contains microplastics. 85% of trash found on Great Lakes beaches is plastic. 21.8 million pounds of plastics enter the Great Lakes each year.
Strolling through her Milwaukee community, Wisconsin Sea Grant’s Social Science Outreach Specialist Deidre Peroff noted an obvious plastic problem. Peroff worked with Leah Holloway from Milwaukee Riverkeeper, a science-based advocacy nonprofit, to develop a plastic project proposal since Peroff was aware of Riverkeeper’s involvement in a Milwaukee initiative to reduce plastics, called Plastic-Free MKE. The goal of the proposal is to reduce the amount of plastics that enter Lake Michigan. In 2020, the team was awarded two years of funding through the National Sea Grant-Marine Debris Special Projects Competition for “Plastic-Free MKE: Assessment and Education to Support Lake-Friendly Schools.”
To help, the team hired Belle Pappalardo, a professional master’s degree student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences.