Canada
Presenter: Dr. Chelsea Rochman is a marine and freshwater ecologist at the University of Toronto’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and also serves as a scientific advisor to the Ocean Conservancy.
Due to the widespread presence of plastic pollution, particularly microplastics, across the Laurentian Great Lakes basin, the International Joint Commission (IJC) has been working to bring focus to the issue since 2015. Past efforts include developing a Microplastics Watching Brief to summarize points of interest related to microplastics, spanning science, policy, and media, and hosting a workshop to develop recommendations for addressing the challenges posed by microplastic pollution across the region. Most recently, in early 2023, the IJC’s Great Lakes Science Advisory Board initiated the formation of a working group on microplastics comprised of subject-matter experts from Canada and the United States. The general objective of our working group is to develop coordinated frameworks for microplastics monitoring and ecological risk assessment and management for use in the Great Lakes. Thus far, our working group has completed several tasks over the past year to meet our objectives. These include (1) drafting a literature review to synthesize recent scientific advances in understanding microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes as well as the remaining knowledge gaps; (2) updating databases on microplastic contamination and effects, (3) hosting a workshop to develop recommendations for harmonized guidelines for sampling microplastics in water, sediment, and biota and, more broadly, considerations for the design and implementation of a Great Lakes-specific monitoring program; and (4) hosting a workshop to develop recommendations for a threshold-based ecological risk assessment and management framework that would contextualize the results of such a monitoring program. This presentation will provide more details about our objectives and progress towards deliverables thus far as we wrap up our workgroup.