According to Orb Media, 83% of the world’s tap water is contaminated by microscopic plastic fibers. Yuck.
Microscopic plastic fibers are flowing out of taps from New York to New Delhi, according to exclusive research by Orb and a researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. From the halls of the U.S. Capitol to the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda, women, children, men, and babies are consuming plastic with every glass of water.
More than 80 percent of the samples we collected on five continents tested positive for the presence of plastic fibers.
Plastics pollution in our planet’s bodies of water has been known for some time, but more recently the level of that pollution has been quantified with alarming data. How pervasive microplastic fibers are can be seen in their appearance in all 24 German beers tested for a recent study. The Guardian explains that while this is really terrible news, the United States is still number one with a bullet!
The US had the highest contamination rate, at 94%, with plastic fibres found in tap water sampled at sites including Congress buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters, and Trump Tower in New York. Lebanon and India had the next highest rates.
European nations including the UK, Germany and France had the lowest contamination rate, but this was still 72%. The average number of fibres found in each 500ml sample ranged from 4.8 in the US to 1.9 in Europe.
We did it, y’all! U.S.A! The fact remains that a lot of work needs to be done here including replicating this study in order to verify its findings. Another is dealing with our reliance on synthetic clothing—which is a definitive culprit in this problem.
There’s one confirmed source of plastic fiber pollution, and you’re probably wearing it. Synthetic garments emit up to 700,000 fibers per wash load, researchers at Plymouth University found. In the US, wastewater plants catch more than half; the rest pour into waterways. That’s 64,000 pounds of plastic microfibers a day, according to one study.
You can watch the Story of Stuff’s two minute video on microfibers below for a quick refresher.