8 Trillion Plastic Microbeads Enter U.S. Waterways Everyday, Study

Research shows that 8 trillion plastic microbeads everyday are polluting the US waterways, and the only way to prevent this from happening is to ban plastic microbeads, according to Discovery News.

It has been a long battle by conservationists, who have been struggling to ban them from personal care products like exfoliants, body washes and toothpastes so that they can achieve better scrubbing and cleaning. But after rinsing off such products the plastic microbeads are washed away down the drain.

They vary in size from 5 µm to 1 mm. Though they are too tiny to be stopped by waste filtering systems, they finally reach wastewater treatment plants, in which a few of them mix with effluent or liquid waste and get into waterways, after which they are transported to various rivers, lakes and then into the ocean.

"Part of this problem can now start with brushing your teeth in the morning," Stephanie Green, study co-author and research fellow at Oregon State University, said in a press release.

With 0 to 7 pieces of plastic microbeads per L of effluent, in the U.S., 160 trillion L of effluent are treated daily.

Hence, researchers have assessed on the assumption that wastewater treatment plants process half the amount of sewage daily, with only 0.1 microbead per L of effluent.

The 8 trillion plastic microbeads, if lined up, cover over 300 tennis courts due to the liquid waste. With 800 trillion plastic microbeads in solid waste in the U.S. alone, the environment gets a beating.

"Contaminants like these microbeads are not something our wastewater treatment plants were built to handle, and the overall amount of contamination is huge," Green said. "The microbeads are very durable."

Chelsea Rochman, lead study author and postdoctoral fellow at the University of California-Davis, pointed out that these microbeads tend to challenge wildlife.

"Microbeads are just one of many types of microplastic found in aquatic habitats and in the gut content of wildlife," Rochman said.

It is important to just ban the microbeads, said researchers. The ban should be worded well, though.

"New wording should ensure that a material that is persistent, bioaccumulative, or toxic is not added to products designed to go down the drain," they wrote.

The study was published in the Sept. 5 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology.