CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Lake Erie has 46,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer.

Gross, right? The proliferation of microbeads, microfibers, fragments and just plain trash rivals the dirtiest part of the world's oceans.

What's even grosser? Tap water has 5 1/2 plastic particles at least the width of a human hair in every liter. Bottled water is twice as bad, with about 10.4 particles per liter.

(Want a better alternative? Beer has about 4 plastic particles per liter. Go figure.)

Sherri A. Mason, a professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, spouted the statistics Tuesday at the 2018 State of the Great Lakes speech at the City Club of Cleveland.

On average, we imbibe about 5,000 pieces of plastic a year, Mason said. No one knows the health effects of plastic on our bodies, though chemicals in plastic have been linked to cancer, autism, obesity and other health issues.

Mason is trying to fix the problem, with research, events and education -- one person at a time.

"Skip the straw, skip the bag, skip the bottle," she said. "That's 65 percent of the plastic market."

The thing with plastic is that it's a mix of thousands of chemicals. There's no real market for recycled plastic, since you can't know exactly what it's in it, in order to make a new product. So all those plastic yogurt containers and packing bags we so carefully rinse and put in our recycle bins? Yeah, they're probably going to landfills.

About 10 percent of plastic manufactured ends up in waterways, Mason said.

Together, the United States and Canada discard 22 million pounds of plastic into Great Lakes waters, according to a Rochester Institute of Technology study. Much of it -- including fast-food straws, cigar tips and plastic bottle caps -- comes flushed from streets, through storm drains and into the lake. Then it washes up on shore, making up about 80 percent of the litter on beaches.

Plastics are carried by winds and currents toward shore -- usually on the east and southern coasts of each lake.

Cleveland restaurants, including Market Garden and Melt, are eliminating straws to curb waste.

Here's what else you can do to help, Mason says:

Use a metal water bottle to fill up with tap water or other beverages, rather than buy disposable bottles and cups.

Bring reusable bags to do your shopping

Refuse a straw at restaurants. You could carry your own metal straw, if you want.

Carry your own bamboo utensils for eating on the go

Use real plates rather than styrofoam for parties.

Mason encouraged listeners to share the facts about plastic, finding an issue people care about.

For example, she said, by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

"Imagine if your son, all he caught was plastic bottles, no fish."

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