People who go fishing might be attracted to a new environmentally friendly lure. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
People who go fishing might be attracted to a new environmentally friendly lure. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Soft plastic lures such as wiggly worms are often made more flexible by adding chemical compounds called phthalates. These chemicals have been linked to adverse health effects… and when the lures are torn off a hook, the compounds pollute waters.
Tim Osswald is a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin. He’s helped a manufacturer come up with a process that uses tiny plastic fibers inside the lures. Osswald says the microfibers make the lures stronger.
“Using this technology they would no longer end up at the bottom of the lake. Or at least at a much, much smaller rate.”
Oswald says the lures no longer stretch like a piece of rubber but still turn and wiggle and have that ‘worm-like feel.’ He says the reinforced lure might cost a little more in the stores. But he says they’re likely to last longer.
For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.