ITHACA — As Tompkins County lawmakers begin discussing the potential dangers of microbeads, a local research team says there’s already cause for concern.

Legislators looked at a microbeads ban from Erie County in the western part of the state this week. Some officials say they’ve received information from local research group Plastic Tides about the environmental impact of this plastic, typically found in toothpaste and face washes.

Christian Shaw from Plastic Tides says the amount of beads they found in Cayuga Lake was concerning.

“It’s serious. It’s really alarming to have gone out and after one round of research and data collection, we had some pretty alarming concentrations of microbeads right here in Cayuga Lake. It’s clear to me that they must be coming from Ithaca. It’s the biggest population center on the lake,” he said.

The report shows on average there were 15,000 beads per square kilometer in Cayuga Lake, with the highest amount being 69,000 beads per square kilometer. Overall, 70  percent of samples taken last fall from surrounding waterways had microbeads in them.

Shaw says they’ve been trying to share their work throughout the area.

“We were really working with a lot of different groups to try to get a state ban through, and that was unsuccessful. So coming into this summer, we launched our internship program. We really wanted to give the students the opportunity to get their hands dirty and to do the same exact research that we’re doing,” he said.

A proposal for a statewide ban of microbeads failed in the legislature last year. The internship program’s research from this summer is still being analyzed and will be published within the next few months.