Well, folks, all the prep and planning has led to this moment: our team officially got onto Okanagan Lake to trawl for some microplastics.

This day would not have been possible without the support and assistance of several key groups. Let’s give them a round of applause!

• The Okanagan Nation Alliance, for generously contributing their research vessel, and two staff and their time to assist us with sampling. Without them, this day would not have happened!
• Okanagan College, for assisting with the sampling and connecting us with a possible option for analyzing these samples in the fall (and Erin and her tiny microscope – so fun to watch little zooplankton zip around the jars)
• UBCO and Ryland Giebelhaus, who joined us on this journey, helped us get our sampling protocols aligned, and assisted with preliminary analysis.
• FreshWater Life and Gregg Howald, steering the ship on this project
• Copper Sky Productions and Jan Vozenilek, capturing the events of this project through his lens. The beautiful visuals you see here are all his work!
• Fresh Outlook Foundation and Joanne De Vries, supporting the communications aspect of this project
• And of course, the OBWB whose grant made this all possible.

The day turned out to be perfect, despite the ever-present smoky skies. Calm water, reasonable temperatures, and enthusiastic deckhands. 🙂 Interestingly, we pulled up what we assume to be ash particles along with organic materials. Once the samples were pulled on deck, they were quickly transferred to glass jars and preserved with ethanol. The jars have been transferred to Okanagan College where they will await further analysis!

Turns out, not all microplastics are created equal. Who knew?

As we dive into the wild world of microplastics, we’re quickly learning that there are many types of microplastics. Let’s start with the big three:

1. films
2. fragments
3. fibres

These are known as “morphologies” or “morphotypes” – think of them as categories. Of course, before we can get to morphology, it’s also helpful to understand that there is another level of microplastics which includes:

1. Primary
2. Secondary

Primary microplastics are purpose-built for a specific task. Think microbeads in face scrubs or toothpaste. Nurdles, or pre-production plastic pellets (what all plastic items are made from) are also an example of primary microplastics. Secondary microplastics are the stuff you see along wrack lines on beaches, the tiny fragments, fibres, and films sloughed off from larger, macro plastics. What is now microplastic once started its life as a bottle, bag, or rope.

In this project, we’re looking for any and all microplastics but we expect we’ll find more secondary microplastics in both Okanagan Lake and Kelowna’s wastewater. Why? Well, for starters, more and more companies are phasing out the use of microbeads in personal care products. There also isn’t a big plastics production industry in Kelowna, an industry where nurdles might be common.

But, we will have to wait and see! Stay tuned for more updates as we gear up to get out in the field.

For more on the big world of small plastics, check out this resource from National Geographic.

Great news! The manta trawl – a key piece of equipment we’ll need for our surface water sampling in Okanagan Lake – arrived today, all the way from Southern California! We’re really grateful for the speediness of our colleague, Dr. Marcus Eriksen, with The 5 Gyres, who got this in the mail overnight to us.

Mimic Nature For Best Results

What is a “manta trawl” you ask? Well, think of a manta ray and you’ll have a good idea as to what it looks like and what it’s doing in the water. Similar to a manta ray, the trawl will skim the very surface layer of the water, propelled forward by the movement of the boat it’s attached to. The mesh on this net is very, very small (0.335 microns, or 0.000335 millimetres!) so it should do a good job at catching microplastics (if they’re there!). Microplastics, as we’ve learned, are any plastic particles less than 5 millimetres in size.

For more on manta rays and microplastics, check out this audio documentary from the BBC, all about studying the way mantas move and operate to come up with solutions for capturing microplastics in wastewater treatment plants before they get out into our watery environments.

Now that we have the manta, it’s time to find a boat and get on the water!