Earlier this month the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that it will launch a review into the amount of microplastics present in drinking water. This is a response to the findings of an American study which were released in March and showed that microplastics were present in almost all of the water brands they tested.
The study was commissioned by Orb Media and conducted by a research team from the Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences at State University of New York, Fredonia. It analysed bottled water collected from 19 places across Brazil, China, Lebanon, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand and the US. Amongst the eleven water brands featured in the research were Aquafina, Evian, Nestle and San Pellegrino.
In total 259 different bottles were tested, with an average number of 325 plastic particles identified per one litre of water. In one bottle, the number was far greater though with more than 10,000 particles identified per 1000ml. The number of particles varied, even between bottles of the same brand of water. Of the 259 bottles, 93% of those analysed showed signs of microplastics being present. Other key findings included that 95% of the particles were between 6.5-100um in size and their most common morphology was fragment, followed by fibre. The most frequent polymer found in the study was polypropylene, which matches a common plastic used for bottle caps.
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