{"id":67691,"date":"2025-05-02T06:24:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T06:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67691\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T06:24:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T06:24:12","slug":"microplastics-persist-in-drinking-water-despite-treatment-plant-advances-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67691\/","title":{"rendered":"Microplastics Persist in Drinking Water Despite Treatment Plant Advances : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tiny pieces of plastic are an increasingly big problem. Known as microplastics<\/a>, they originate from clothing, kitchen utensils, personal care products, and countless other everyday objects. Their durability makes them persistent in the environment \u2013 including in human bodies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Not only are many people on Earth already contaminated by microplastics, but we’re also still being exposed every day, as there is minimal regulation of these insidious specks.<\/p>\n

According to a new literature review, a significant portion of our microplastic exposure may come from drinking water, as wastewater treatment plants are still not effectively removing microplastics.<\/p>\n

Roughly 9 billion metric tons<\/a> of plastic have been produced globally since plastic production began, much of which has progressively degraded into ever-smaller fragments without truly breaking down, forming a fine plastic dust that now pervades the planet.<\/p>\n

These small particles, measuring 5 millimeters across or smaller<\/a>, are now widespread in soil and water around the world. Wastewater treatment plants actually do remove a lot of this, the new study indicates, but not enough.<\/p>\n

“What our systematic literature review found is that while most wastewater treatment facilities significantly reduce microplastics loads, complete removal remains unattainable with current technologies,” says<\/a> senior author Un-Jung Kim, environmental engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA).<\/p>\n

“As a result, many microplastics are being reintroduced into the environment, likely transporting other residual harmful pollutants in wastewater, such as bisphenols, PFAS and antibiotics.”<\/p>\n

“These microplastics and organic pollutants would exist in trace levels, but we can get exposure through simple actions like drinking water, doing laundry, or watering plants, leading to potential long-term serious human health impacts such as cardiovascular disease and cancer<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The review suggests one important hurdle is the lack of a universal definition for what counts as a microplastic, plus the absence of standardized methods for measuring its presence in water.<\/p>\n

“We found that the effectiveness of treatments varies depending on the technology communities use and how microplastics are measured to calculate the removal rates,” says<\/a> lead author Jenny Kim Nguyen, environmental chemist at UTA.<\/p>\n

“One way to better address the growing microplastics issue is to develop standardized testing methods that provide a clearer understanding of the issue,” she adds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nguyen is currently working to help establish such methods, a key step in addressing the daunting threat to public health posed by microplastics.<\/p>\n

“This work helps us understand the current microplastics problem, so we can address its long-term health impacts and establish better mitigation efforts,” says<\/a> co-author Karthikraj Rajendiran, analytical chemist at UTA.<\/p>\n

While much remains unknown about the effects of microplastics<\/a> on ecological and human health, the signs so far are generally not good.<\/p>\n

Previous studies have revealed evidence of their toxic effect<\/a> throughout the food web, although more research is still needed to clarify what exactly all this microplastic is doing to our bodies and ecosystems.<\/p>\n

There are indications it can lead to inflammation<\/a>, oxidative stress, immune responses, and cancer<\/a>, with highly variable health effects depending not just on the type and amount of microplastic, but also the presence of additional toxicants hitching a ride on these fragments.<\/p>\n

One recent study<\/a> found high microplastic concentrations in arteries of stroke patients, raising further alarm about the potential health effects as these contaminants accumulate in vital organs.<\/p>\n

More broadly, there are concerns microplastic pollution could disrupt photosynthesis<\/a> on a large scale, with predictably dire results.<\/p>\n

In the absence of stronger regulation of microplastics, consumers are largely left to fend for themselves. Armed with the right information, however, it is possible to significantly cut back on exposure.<\/p>\n

One important point to remember, for example, is that microfibers represent a major portion of microplastic pollution, many of which come from clothing made of synthetic materials.<\/p>\n

“While communities must take steps to improve microplastic detection and screening at the wastewater and water quality monitoring, consumers can already make a difference by choosing to buy clothing and textiles with less plastics whenever feasible, knowing that microfibers are the most common microplastic continually released through wastewater,” Kim says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The study was published in Science of the Total Environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tiny pieces of plastic are an increasingly big problem. Known as microplastics, they originate from clothing, kitchen utensils,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,120,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-67691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-msft-content","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114436811385389740","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}