Oregon State University / Flickr
By Erin Hartmann, S23 Environmental Clinic Student
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles (usually less than 5 millimeters in diameter) that do not readily break down into bio-friendly molecules. In fact, plastics can take hundreds to thousands of years to break down. While some microplastics are intentionally created for commercial use, they also form from the breakdown of larger plastic items as a result of exposure to environmental factors (such as the sun’s radiation and ocean waves). Either way, they are making a name for themselves as a significant environmental pollutant. Microplastics travel with the help of storms and water runoff, carrying winds, and littering humans. Readily seen as multicolored bits in the sand, microplastics are consumed by many marine animals who mistake them as food.
Perhaps understandably, not everyone is likely to feel a sense of urgency about the ubiquity of microplastics. After all, while microplastics have been detected in marine organisms of all sizes (including in commercial seafood) for a few years now, scientists are just now starting to see the effects of consumption on these organisms: for example, reduced growth, inability to absorb nutrition, and cellular stress. However, it is known that standard water treatment facilities cannot rid the water supply of all traces of microplastics. While researchers have yet to fully understand the health risks of microplastics in humans, researchers associated with the University of Victoria in Canada evaluated the amount of microplastics in foods that constitute approximately 15% of Americans’ caloric intake and estimated that humans ingest between 39,000-52,000 microplastic particles each year, a number that increases to between 74,000-121,000 when inhalation of microplastics is considered. And drinking mostly bottled water adds an extra 90,000 pieces annually.
In the last few decades, plastic production rose exponentially, and up to 578,000 tons of microplastics are estimated to be in our oceans. So, what is being done about this tricky pollutant? In the United States, Congress amended the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 2015 by passing the Microbead-Free Waters Act, which prohibits the manufacturing, packaging, and distribution of cosmetics containing plastic microbeads. Congress passed this law to address concerns about the tiny plastic beads in the water supply ending up in lakes and oceans. While the EPA has not yet developed regulations regarding the release of microplastics, it has developed a Microplastic Beach Protocol to help volunteer community scientists collect data on microplastics pollution and established reliable and reproducible approaches for sampling for microplastics in sediment and water.
On an international level, in 2022 the United Nations Environment Assembly approved a plan to create the world’s first international, legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution by 2024. Endorsed by 175 nations including the United States, the resolution calls for regulation of plastic’s full life cycle—from production to decomposition—and will include microplastics in its definition of plastic pollution. The resolution established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), which hopes to complete a draft of the treaty—with the goal for it to be legally binding—by the end of 2024. However, despite being described as the most significant green deal since the 2015 Paris Agreement, it is clear that coming to an agreement that is legally binding and enforceable will come with extraordinary difficulty. Following the first round of INC negotiations late last year, there is a split between member-nations on whether the efforts should be global and mandatory, or voluntary and country-led. The United States advocates for a country-led approach in which countries set their own action plans, a position that prevents the treaty from having a common international regulatory framework, and one that many say ultimately weakens the treaty’s overall purpose.
More recently, on January 14th, 2023, Thérèse Coffey, current Environment Secretary of the United Kingdom, officially announced that single-use plastic items, such as cutlery, plates, bowls, etc., will not be provided or sold to consumers, retailers, and hospitality businesses in England.
Looking prospectively, there are promising attempts to further limit microplastic pollution. Past efforts in the United States have centered on plastics recycling and preventing larger single-use plastic items from entering our ecosystems. However, given the growing concern and realization that microplastic pollution in the ocean is more extensive than surface pollution, regulatory efforts to reduce single use plastics and revise regulatory mandates are expected to pick up. In 2022 the EPA advanced its National Recycling Strategy, which has a goal of increasing the U.S. recycling rate by 50% by 2030, and, pursuant to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is offering $275 million in grants for solid waste infrastructure for recycling. In the recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2023, Congress included a number of directives to federal agencies, including support for the EPA’s research on plastics in water supplies (including microplastics), funding for the State Department’s efforts to reduce ocean plastic pollution, increased efforts to participate in negotiations for a global agreement addressing plastic pollution, and direction to the U.S. Geological Survey to focus on micro and nanoplastics research. In December 2022, a group of U.S. Senators and Representatives introduced the Protecting Communities from Plastics Act for consideration, which would require a pause on the permitting of certain new plastic facilities and petrochemical plants, and create nationwide targets for plastic source reduction and reuse in the packaging and food service sectors. It would also create federal incentives to spur the expansion of reusable and refillable systems, with an emphasis on ensuring benefits are realized in environmental justice communities. And it would require EPA to determine whether certain chemicals used in plastics production could cause or contribute to “adverse public health impacts.”
The question I personally consider is what figures and effects scientists will have to demonstrate incidental microplastics consumption have in order to make regulations surrounding microplastics specifically a forefront issue. It may be years before the long-term effects of yearly consumption of tens of thousands of microplastic particles are realized in humans, but it seems clear we shouldn’t wait until then to make drastic changes.
The articles published on this site reflect the views of the individual authors only. They do not represent the views of the Environmental Clinic, The University of Texas School of Law, or The University of Texas at Austin.