Chemicals on their way out of U.S. consumer products are increasingly present in Great Lakes birds

Chemicals used for more than 60 years in paper, carpet, furniture, clothing, cardboard and Teflon are showing up in the eggs of Great Lakes birds, according to a recent study.

The 20 year study, published in November by Canadian Great Lakes researchers, is the first ever of the presence of poly- and perfluorinated compounds in Great Lakes wildlife.

The man-made contaminants known collectively as PFCs continue to rise in Great Lakes herring gulls.

The results surprised researchers because the U.S. EPA asked major manufacturers to reduce the use of the chemicals by 95 percent by 2010 and eliminate the emissions and their products completely by 2015.

“With the phasing out of the compound, you’d start to see them go down but clearly there are many sources,” said Robert Letcher, a research scientist at Environment Canada and the study’s co-author.

More puzzling, the eggs are more contaminated than the birds that lay them. Read More