RCCDO SEPTEMBER 14 BULLETIN

By: Kevin Lui, TIME.com (Sept. 2017)
V
irtually all the world's tap water
is contaminated by microscopic
plastic fibers, a new study
claims, raising fresh concerns about the
implications of rampant plastic pollution
on human and planetary health.
Some 83% of tap water samples collected
from over a dozen countries on
five continents tested positive for microplastic,
according
to a study commissioned
by data journalism
outlet Orb.
The specific rate of
prevalence in different
locales varied,
but all tested locations
— from Europe
to Jakarta and Beirut
— saw plastic found
in over 70% of tap
water samples.
In the U.S., researchers
found that
94% of all water samples — including
tap water from places like Trump Tower
and the Environmental Protection Agency's
headquarters — were contaminated
by plastic.
These microscopic fragments enter the
water system in multiple ways, from
synthetic fiber clothing to tire dust and
microbeads, as well as the fragmenting
of larger pieces of plastic, which for the
most part is non-biodegradable.
With about 300 million tons of plastic
produced annually, the worsening contamination
problem it brings to oceans
and rivers has attracted increasing concern.
Attention has previously focused on
plastic pollution's effect on marine life,
seabirds and the human food chain, but
effects of microplastic's presence in the
human body remain to be studied.
Helpful Link: https://orbmedia.org/
stories/Invisibles_plastics/multimedia
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