Tiny fragments of plastic have been found in nearly every organ in the body, including the brain and lungs. For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is adding these microplastics to a list of drinking water contaminants the agency is considering for future regulation.
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“For too long, Americans have been ignored as they sound the alarm about plastics in their drinking water. That ends today,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said Thursday at a news conference.
The EPA, which is required to publish the contaminant list every five years, released a draft of the sixth installment Thursday. The draft list also includes pharmaceuticals (such as antibiotics, antidepressants and hormones), disinfection byproducts (which form when chlorine reacts with organic materials in water), and perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (known informally as “forever chemicals”). PFAS and disinfection byproducts were on the list published in 2022.
Once the list is finalized and published, the EPA will decide whether to set national limits on the levels of the contaminants allowed in public drinking water.
While Thursday’s action is an initial step toward removing microplastics from drinking water, it by no means requires public water systems to do so, which could take years.
Early research has indicated that exposure to microplastics may increase the risk of cancer, fertility issues or heart disease, but scientists say the data is far from conclusive and it’s hard to know what amount of exposure, if any, would precipitate negative health outcomes.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at the briefing that his agency was launching a $144 million program to measure microplastics exposure, understand the health risks and find ways to remove them.
“We still do not have clear answers about causation or solutions,” Kennedy said. “We do not yet understand how these particles interact with the immune system, the endocrine system or the neurological system, and we do not have validated methods to remove them safely.”
Some environmental advocates applauded the move as a step in the right direction. Others called it a performative move that contrasts with the EPA’s recent regulatory actions, including a rollback of mercury emissions standards, rescinding drinking water limits for certain PFAS and delaying Biden-era restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.
“Zeldin’s EPA is not taking bold action to ensure drinking water safety,” Suzanne Novak, director of drinking water advocacy for Earthjustice, an environmental law group, said in a statement. “This is a PR stunt that doesn’t require a single test, set a single drinking water standard, or protect a single community.”
Betsy Southerland, former director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA’s Office of Water, said the actions announced Thursday weren’t as groundbreaking as they were made out to be.
“What RFK is trying to do with this very deceptive spin statement is act like this is a real aggressive move on Zeldin’s part, when, in fact, it’s just the very beginning of potential research,” said Southerland, who volunteers for the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit group composed of former EPA staff. “They’re trying to take credit for something that is so early in the process, nobody’s going to benefit from it for years.”
But Rebecca Fry, chair of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said she was “cautiously optimistic.”
“The fact that we don’t monitor for it means that there’s data that’s missing,” Fry said. “This will allow us to have new information, and new information is always good.”
Julian Fairey, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas who studies drinking water byproducts, said that adding new compounds to the list of contaminants may make it easier to get the necessary funding for future studies.
“It’s a very long, arduous process from identifying possible compounds that are in our drinking water, figuring out the concentration that’s present, and then trying to answer the question of whether it’s having a negative health impact,” Fairey said. “If you’re writing a grant, it’s going to add a layer of justification, from an academic perspective, to get funding to study it.”
Microplastics, which are less than 5 millimeters in size, come from larger plastic pieces that degrade in the environment. They’re also deliberately manufactured as “microbeads” for consumer products such as toothpaste or exfoliating scrubs, though the U.S. began phasing them out of manufacturing roughly a decade ago.
Humans can breathe them in via particles in the air or ingest them through food and water. Plastic packaging and cookware are common sources of microplastics in the home and are prone to releasing the particles when they’re worn down or exposed to heat.
A small study in February found microplastics deep inside prostate cancer tumors, but it was unclear whether their presence played a role in the development of their cancer. While 90% of the tumors had microplastics, 70% of noncancerous samples did, too. Other research has found microplastics in brain tissue, blood and even embedded in lung tissue. None proved their existence caused harm.