The Bayfield contingent of eXXpedition 2016 set out shortly after 10:30am Saturday morning.
Co-Leader Jennifer Pate explains eXXpedition 2016 is a one-day event that has been co-ordinated to take place today on all of the Great Lakes to draw attention to the issue of plastic waste in the Great Lakes.
Pate says an expedition across the Atlantic in 2014 revealed a higher density of mico-plastics in the Great Lakes than in the oceans.
Pate says some of the plastic waste is in the form of plastic containers and bottles that are carelessly discarded but others are the micro-beads that people don't even realize are contained in many of the cosmetic products sold today to a bit part of the solution to the problem is educating and convincing people not to use those products.
Pate adds part of the reason for the density of micro-plastics in the Great Lakes is the population density around the Great Lakes. Part of it is also the fact that water in the Great Lakes stays in the Great Lakes for a very long period of time before it eventually makes its way to the Atlantic Ocean.