Sask. study finds soft plastic fishing lures may be leaching into waterways [Video]

If you use soft plastic fishing lures when spending a day on the water, you might want to change it up.

A study published this summer in the journal Science of the Total Environment suggests soft plastic lures are leaching water-soluble plastic additives.

“The research team, we are all quite avid anglers,” said Markus Brinkmann, associate professor in the school of Environment and Sustainability, and director of the Toxicology Centre at the University of Saskatchewan.

“When you use these kinds of materials in the environment, every now and then you snap one off. Every now and then, every other trip or so, you lose a lure. And, then the big question to us was, what happens with that material?”

The team selected 16 common soft plastic lures and performed chemical and bio-analytical tests for leaching of phthalates and hormone-mimicking chemicals.

“There are things in there that you would expect in …