With the peak of Summer passed and the return to school upcoming chances are that your vacations are nearing an end. There are plenty of places to visit inside the US to enjoy for activities like swimming, canoeing, or kayaking. You may have visited some of the Great Lakes in the north of the county but have been blissfully unaware of the dangers these natural beauties hold.
Four years ago, Mike Shoreman lost all of his mobility.
Doctors said he'd never paddleboard again.
This weekend, he became the first person with a disability to paddle board across the Great Lakes, raising $64,000 for mental health programs. pic.twitter.com/kboXtIHBgx
So far in 2022, there have been a combined 95 deaths in all of the lakes. The vast majority of these deaths have been caused by drowning though there are a number of unexplained cases too. 38 drownings have occured in Lake Michigan alone.
"Lake Michigan has been responsible for around 45 percent of Great Lakes drownings this year, more than double the death toll of any other Great Lake," Amber Twardy of ABC57 News explained, "Other Great Lakes have similar dangers to those of Lake Michigan, but fewer sandy beaches for people to visit with millions of tourists visiting the lake each year."
Punters visiting Lake Michigan also have to contend with strong currents and riptides which make swimming in it dangerous.
Pollution in the lakes is extremely rife. According to the Rochester Institute of Technology, more than 22 million pounds (nearly 10 million kilogrammes) of plastic pollution is dumped in them each year. Of particular concern for humans is that these same lakes provide drinking water for 40 million people.
The Great Lakes are warming faster than the oceans. Our Inflation Reduction Law will help protect them for generations to come. pic.twitter.com/tGpzKtBO1V
The danger of ingesting microplastics in drinking water is they can cause cancer as well as a multitude of harmful chemicals.
"Harmful effects on cells are in many cases the initiating event for health effects," said Evangelos Danopoulos, of Hull York Medical School, UK, and who led the research published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. "We should be concerned. Right now, there isn't really a way to protect ourselves [from microplastics]."