At a Glance

A new study found microplastics in every beer sampled that uses Great Lakes water in the brewing process.The researchers also surveyed tap water and found tiny plastic particles in nearly every sample.The study's authors say it should be a wake-up call about the prevalence of microplastics in our world.

Great Lakes water that's used for drinking water or beer contains tiny plastic particles in what is a widespread problem, a new study has found.

The study, in the online journal PLOS ONE, found microplastics in all 12 beers they sampled around the Great Lakes, and all 12 use water from those five bodies of water. The minuscule pieces of plastic were also found in eight of the nine tap water samples they pulled from around the Great Lakes, the study added.

Most of the microplastics they found in the water and beer were 5 millimeters in length or shorter, the researchers also said.

"I think what was surprising was the widespread contamination, that the contamination was detected in tap water throughout the world in many sources of tap water from both urban sources and rural sources, ," Betsy Wattenberg, University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMN) School of Public Health associate professor and co-author of the study, told Wisconsin Public Radio.

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What the study confirmed, according toUMN School of Public Health graduate student and study co-author Mary Kosuth, is that "," she told the Forum News Service. But there are still plenty of questions to be answered, like what the health impacts of drinking these microplastics might be.

Kosuth also cited a German beer study performed in 2014, which found plastic particles in all 24 brands of beer analyzed, so this problem is certainly not exclusive to beverages made with Great Lakes water.

Since plastics are used for virtually everything in our lives, tiny microplastics are also everywhere, Kosuth added. In other words, tracing the origins of these small pieces of plastic is difficult – some could have come from the Great Lakes, while others might have entered the beers during the brewing process.

"We need to change behavior among people and industries, and improve policies to reduce the amount of single-use plastic," Kosuth told theForum News Service.