In a brand new, first of its kind, investigation, Orb Media has discovered the presence of plastic particles in tap water.
Orb Media, a digital media nonprofit, along with the State University of New York and the University of Minnesota, conducted a study analyzing 159 drinking water samples across five continents over a ten-month period. The results showed microplastics, or tiny plastic particles, in 83 percent of the samples tested.
Even worse news for people in the U.S. is that we tied with Beirut, Lebanon for the high plastic fiber contamination rate – 94 percent.
Several European nations, such as France and the U.K., tested the lowest for contamination at 72 percent.
Samples in the U.S. were taken from 33 different sites, including the United States Capitol Complex, the Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Washington, D.C. and the Trump Grill in New York.
According to an EPA spokeswoman, the U.S. doesn’t currently have any safety standards for plastic in drinking water. Plastics are also not present on the EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List of unregulated substances for tap water. We already know that BPA, a plastic chemical, can be absorbed by the body, and has been found in 93 percent of Americans ages six or older.
These new revelations are pushing for scientists to study what consuming plastic particles could mean for human health.
Plastic is already heavily polluting our environment. A 2011 study found that microplastics make up 85 percent of human made debris on shorelines across the globe. Now it is polluting our bodies as well.
As the study states, “Microscopic plastic fibers are flowing out of taps from New York to New Delhi. 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.”
The news of plastic in our drinking water comes on the heels of the recent study that revealed nearly 100 cancer-causing contaminants in U.S. drinking water.
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