It’s not snow, it’s styrofoam: Lake Tahoe littered with thousands of ‘detrimental’ beads

Beads, believed to be remnants of a floating dock and made of polystyrene, can harm environment and aquatic life, say experts

The shores of Lake Tahoe were dusted with white after winter weather hit the area over the weekend. It wasn’t snow, however, but thousands of small plastic styrofoam beads.

A storm released the pollutants, the remains of a floating dock, on to the shoreline of Incline Village beaches. Staff with Clean Up the Lake, a local non-profit, and at least two dozen volunteers staged a major cleanup to clear the area, which has faced a host of environmental problems in recent years amid a surge in tourism and popularity.

The size of the beads, and the fact that they mixed into sand and snow, made them particularly difficult to remove, the non-profit said.

“These beads, believed to be made of expanded polystyrene, can have detrimental effects on aquatic life and pose serious threats to the overall health of the environment,” the non-profit said in a statement. “These threats include the further breakdown of these beads into microplastics which aggravate an already troubling issue for Lake Tahoe.”

The beads appear to be remnants of a floating dock, which may have disintegrated into at least 100,000 pieces after coming in to contact with a boat ramp. The storm created large waves that threw the beads on to shore, said Colin West, the Clean Up the Lake founder.

This week, volunteers brought pasta strainers, buckets, leafblowers and shop vacuums to clear the beads from the shoreline of the lake, famous for its striking clear turquoise waters. “We used every technique we could,” West said.

After an extensive cleanup, volunteers managed to remove as much as 90% of the beads, but that still leaves thousands of beads mixed in the sand and snow, West said.

“We’ve kind of done everything we can do manually,” he said. “This kind of spill is just really terrible and one of the hardest things to clean.”

The explosion of plastic beads is the second documented by Clean Up the Lake in recent years. West said the incident highlights the need to suspend the use of such plastics in docks and projects around the lake, and create more awareness for beachgoers to not bring anything containing styrofoam, which can be found in dog toys, among other items.

Despite decades of efforts to protect the lake, pollution is an ongoing problem in Tahoe. Clean Up the Lake has removed 61,541lbs of litter since 2018, conducting nearly 400 dives to reach trash in the far depths of the lake.

The lake also has high concentrations of microplastics. Recent research found that of 38 lakes tested around the world, Tahoe had some of the highest concentrations of plastics.

“It’s our collective responsibility to take care of Lake Tahoe – to pick up our trash, leave no trace, leave only footprints on the Tahoe shoreline, and to be aware that our modern-day convenient lifestyle does come at a cost,” Julie Regan, the executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, said last year.

Cover photo: Polystyrene beads washed up on the shore of Lake Tahoe. Photograph: Courtesy Clean Up the Lake