By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

You probably don’t need another huge global problem to worry about. At least Shannon Speir is doing something about this one. 

Speir recently helped lead a study of how microplastics travel through streams, and how storms affect that process. She’s a Ph.D. and assistant professor of water quality in the University of Arkansas’ Topsoil and Environmental Sciences Department.

Plastics pollution may or may not be on your radar screen when there are so many other big, potentially terrible things happening. But it’s a very real problem nonetheless. 

The world is producing hundreds of millions of tons of plastic each year, and it doesn’t biodegrade. Instead, it slowly disintegrates over many years into microplastics and smaller nanoplastics. These get into the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.

As a result, these tiny plastics particles exist throughout our bodies. They get into our bloodstreams. They travel through a pregnant woman’s umbilical cord into her unborn baby. One recent study led by the University of New Mexico found that the microplastics found in deceased people’s brain tissue had increased by 50% from 2016 to 2024, and that people who had been diagnosed with dementia had more plastic than people who hadn’t. 

The science is still new, and the health risks are not known with certainty. But this can’t be good. 

One thing that can be done is determine how plastics travel through the environment. That’s what Dr. Speir has been doing. She recently helped lead a study of how plastics flow through streams at Notre Dame’s Linked Experimental Ecosystem Facility. The LEAF enables researchers to study stream activity in a real but manipulable environment.

The team conducted pulse releases of a solution containing microplastics into streams with varying types of beds. The results showed that microplastics tended to settle more often in gravelly stream beds than in those with sandy bottoms. There are more crevasses in gravel to trap the plastics. Gravel also gives algae a place to grow. Algae can trap plastics material.

Microplastics that settle at the bottom don’t travel as quickly into rivers and oceans. However, the researchers found that heavier flows of water – like those that would occur during a storm – dislodged the plastics from the bottom and suspended them in the water so that they could travel with the flow. Over time, the plastic would travel down the stream, settle, and then travel again. 

“It may take years, but it will probably eventually make it to the ocean,” she said.

Speir and her fellow researchers published their study in Limnology and Oceanography in February. The findings could make it easier to determine what monitoring and remediation efforts would be most effective.

Speir tries to avoid using and ingesting plastics in her personal life. She stores food in glass containers. Instead of plastic water bottles, she uses stainless steel ones. She tries to make conscientious decisions at the grocery store, where so many products come wrapped in plastic. That includes shopping with reusable silicon bags, which she’s had for 10 years. 

She also tries to wear natural fibers such as cotton. Synthetic materials such as polyester contain plastic that can be released into the washing machine.

As for recycling, people should make sure they deposit clean materials. If there’s food on it, it can’t be recycled. 

Plastics pollution is another one of those overwhelming problems that can lead a person to despair, or, if not, at least to inaction. Speir said if lots of people each do their small part, it can make a big difference.

“I think that things like plastic pollution, the problem seems so big that you as an individual feel that you can’t do anything, but if we all as individuals have that mentality, then, yeah, we’re never going to do anything,” she said. 

“But I think people really discount the power of collective individual action. So if I’m doing it and you’re doing it, and your neighbor’s doing it, and my neighbor’s doing it, et cetera, et cetera, that amounts to a lot. …

“Maybe we’re making little teeny dents, but hopefully they add up to a big dent in the problem.”

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 21 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.