Microplastics Archives

Premature or Precautionary? California is First to Tackle Microplastics in Drinking Water

California is poised to issue the world’s first guidelines for microplastics in drinking water despite no data on how plentiful they are in the state, no scientific agreement on how to test water for them and little research on their health risks.

The pieces of plastic — smaller than an ant, some so tiny they can be seen only with a microscope — have contaminated wildlife and human bodies through their food, air and water.

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California Moves to Monitor Microplastics in Drinking Water

January 21, 2021/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /Jefferson Public Radioby The Jefferson Exchange Team

We talk about microplastics in the ocean and on land fairly often, but they are present in drinking water as well.

The California Legislature passed a bill in 2018 requiring monitoring of the tiny plastic particles in drinking water. Standards are due to be set up by the state Water Resources Control Board this year.

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Experts Distrust the Tap, but Prefer it to Bottles

November 9, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Chelsea Campos /E&E Newsby Ariel Wittenberg

There could be lead in your tap water. There could be PFAS in your bottled water. Microplastics might be in both. Do you choose neurotoxic heavy metals or carcinogenic “forever chemicals?”

That’s the predicament facing Americans every time they take a drink of water.

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California Adopts Definition of Microplastics in Drinking Water

July 21, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The National Law Reviewby Dacia T. Meng

In accordance with deadlines set in 2018 legislation, the California State Water Resources Control Board has adopted a definition for “microplastics” that will be used in testing of drinking water for microplastics. The Board was required, on or before July 1, 2020, to adopt a definition of microplastics in drinking water and, on or before July 1, 2021, will be required to adopt requirements for testing and reporting on microplastics in drinking water, among other things. While this development is currently focused on the testing of drinking water in California, the Board and others expect that it will form the basis of future efforts to quantify and address microplastics in the environment.

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Regulating Microplastics in Drinking Water: California Retains its Vanguard Status

May 7, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Kimberlyn Velasquez /The National Law Reviewby Olivia Molodanof

The California State Water Resources Control Board is poised to become “the first regulatory agency in the world to specifically define ‘Microplastics in Drinking Water.”‘ In September 2018, the California legislature adopted Health and Safety Code section 116376 via Senate Bill No. 1422, adding microplastics regulations to California’s Safe Drinking Water Act.

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Microplastics: A Macro Problem

February 19, 2020/in California and the U.S., Home Headline, Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /PHYS.orgby University of California, San Diego

Flying somewhere over the planet, there’s a plane equipped with research-grade, double-sided tape on the outside of its hull. Each time the pilot lands the plane, he removes the tape, seals it in a package, and replaces it with a new one before he takes off again. He then mails the package to Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, care of Dimitri Deheyn, Associate Researcher.

Looking at the tape under a microscope, Deheyn sees what he’s looking for: microfibers, stuck to the adhesives.

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Yes, There’s Microplastic in the Snow

December 13, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Quartzby Zoë Schlanger

This is the year we found microplastic in the snow.

Although microplastics have been popping up everywhere from the waters of Antarctica to our table salt, the idea that it could blow in the wind or fall as precipitation back down to Earth is extremely new. The main mode of microplastic transport, as far as we knew as recently as last year, was water. It had already shown up in drinking water a few years prior. But microplastic in snow suggests something different: Microplastics carried by wind, and settling out of the air along with the frosty flakes.

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Microplastics In Drinking Water ‘Don’t Appear To Pose Health Risk,’ WHO Says

August 21, 2019/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /FOX 5 San Diego

They may be in our oceans, rivers and ice but there’s little evidence to suggest that microplastics in the water we drink pose a risk to our health. In its first review on the health risks of plastic in tap and bottled water, the World Health Organization said that microplastics “don’t appear to pose a health risk at current levels,” but the key finding came with a big caveat — the review said available information was limited and more research was needed on microplastics and how they affect human health.

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