Shedd Aquarium staff and volunteers take action to clean up Chicago beaches

CBS News

a day ago

Shedd Aquarium staff and volunteers on Wednesday took action, cleaning up along Chicago's lakefront.
Volunteers spent the day picking up trash, weighing it, and getting it off the beach at 12th Street Beach, in part to keep plastics out of Lake Michigan.
Last year, similar cleanup efforts removed nearly 6,000 pounds of trash from Chicago's beaches.
Bucket in hand and mission in mind, volunteer Daniel Gerstung was one of several volunteers cleaning up 12th Street Beach, working with Shedd Aquarium staff on one of their frequent Action Days to keep Chicago beaches trash-free.
"Seeing plastic on the beach is really upsetting; so being able to be at this opportunity is really, really great," he said.
Jaclyn Wegner, the Shedd's director of conservation action, was leading the charge.
"It does make a big difference," she said.
Shedd staff and volunteers itemized and the trash, filling buckets, and sharing data with organizations studying pollution issues in the Great Lakes.
"It's estimated that about 22 million pounds of plastic enter the Great Lakes annually," Wegner said.
A recent study from the Alliance for the Great Lakes found 86% of the litter in the Great Lakes contains plastic.
Another study found microplastics in every single species of fish sampled in the Great Lakes, but it's not just fish that are ingesting microplastics.
"It ends up in our drinking water. … The Great Lakes is drinking water for 40 million people in our region, so it is ending up in our drinking water, and it's also impacting wildlife health," Wegner said.
A danger to our greatest resource, our health, and native wildlife, but trash on the beaches isn't just a Chicago problem.
Experts said the Chicago River can transport plastic downstream to the Mississippi River and eventually the ocean.
Their message ahead of the busy July 4th holiday weekend?
"We definitely are expecting to see a lot of trash left behind and it just takes a lot of work to clean up after folks, and we hope that we can try to prevent that," Wegner said.
It's one reason the Shedd is working with local restaurants and businesses to limit plastic products, with many of the plastic products picked up on Chicago beaches being takeout containers.