Watching Briefs
About Water Quality Board Watching Briefs
The Great Lakes Water Quality Board (WQB) develops watching briefs for the purpose of summarizing significant developments, events and information in a factual manner on specific, defined topic areas. They are periodically updated and serve to keep the WQB informed on issues which have or could impact the waters of the Great Lakes. Watching briefs are not an exhaustive compilation of materials but provide a general overview of the topic for informational purposes. Watching briefs do not contain formal proposals or recommendations from the WQB to the International Joint Commission (IJC), governments or other entities. Watching briefs contain links that will navigate to sites external to the IJC domain; the IJC or WQB is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the content of those sites, nor does the content of these external sites reflect the views or opinions of the IJC or the WQB.
Microplastics Watching Brief (current as of May 2022)
Since 2015, the WQB has maintained a watching brief on the topic of microplastics. This watching brief summarizes the state of the microplastics issue and developments related to the management of plastics and microplastics within the Great Lakes basin and regions beyond, that may be applicable to or have implications for the Great Lakes basin.
If you know of any developments on plastics/microplastics issues in the Great Lakes that you would like to share, please contact the WQB Secretariat using the “Contact” button at the bottom of the webpage.