WATCH: Do microplastics pose a risk to Okanagan Lake?

A team of researchers involving several community partners and Okanagan College (OC) students have found very small amounts of microplastics in Okanagan Lake as well as municipal wastewater.

However, it’s too early to say if it's a problem.

Initial results from a study conducted in August 2021, confirm microplastics (less than 5 millimetres in diameter) are present in both water sources.

Eight students and professors from Okanagan College’s Water Engineering Technology (WET) Diploma program worked with researchers to analyze the samples.

They were collected around the Kelowna Wastewater treatment facility, Mission Creek, and W.R. Bennet Bridge. A total of 2.75 grams of plastic was brought for inspection.

Ryan Cope, project manager for Microplastics Okanagan, told Kelowna10 there shouldn’t be any concerns for now.

“This project is really a scoping study, not even a baseline; it’s a small scale,” she said. “We found they were detected, but much more research is needed to determine the true extent of the issue and if it is a problem as well.”

Cope said they would like to dig deeper to find out more by increasing the sampling of Okanagan Lake.

“We’d like to increase our sampling of the lake and go further north and south. We’d also like to go further into the water columns. Not just the surface water, but do sub surface sampling, sediment sampling, and more work with the wastewater treatment facility.”

Microplastics can be visible to the human eye, mistaken for organic debris, or even food for aquatic organisms such as zooplankton, fish, and birds.

Joshua Sztanko, who was one of the Okanagan College students who worked on the project said the work involved isolating, verifying, and measuring microplastics from the samples provided.

“This was a phenomenal capstone project in that it offered a real-world learning opportunity with microplastics and the chance to contribute to a study that has an impact right here in the Okanagan where we live,” he said.

The team notes that concentrations of microplastics appear to be low, relative to other, similar studies that have been conducted in the Great Lakes, and low as compared to similar studies in the marine environment. The amounts found so far can be related to a few teaspoons of plastic over 30,000 litres of water.

However, OC said the findings are a reminder people should continue to be mindful of their behaviours as it relates to plastics. Microplastics come from larger pieces of plastic: bags, bottles, fibres that fly off boats or fall in creeks.