6 ms·

Nanoplastics in water – surprisingly large amounts discovered and its not good

55 points by adomasm3 3y ago

Fauntleroy 3y ago
Are there any consumer devices that are capable of filtering out any amount of micro or nano plastics? I already avoid plastic bottles as much as I reasonably can, and I'd like to make sure my tap water is as not terrible as possible.
- metadat 3y ago
  A reverse-osmosis water filtration system will significantly reduce the amount of microplastics present.
  - untech 3y ago
    The original article suggests that reverse-osmosis filters might generate nanoplastics
- monetus 3y ago
  Lots of activated charcoal does help to an extent, which is a standard for filters. The more, the better, which inevitably slows the water to a trickle. I use a kichu water filter(1) in an old Brita, but I have had my eye on an a glass dafi pitcher which should hold it aa well. I pack it full, and let it sit for a day if possible - then dump it in another glass pitcher with a little charcoal stick inside that. https://kishucharcoal.com/shop/brita-reuseable-filter-501/ https://kishucharcoal.com/shop/brita-reuseable-filter-501/ As the sibling says, reverse osmosis is the best.
  - jna_sh 3y ago
    Doesn’t the post link to an article that suggests reverse osmosis membranes may be responsible for some of these nanoplastics? Am I misreading this?
    - naikrovek 3y ago
      no, you're not misreading.
    - ohthanks 3y ago
      The articles state higher levels in bottled water treated with RO but there are many stages of treatment and delivery involved in industrial scale bottled water production. Unclear if RO itself is the underlying cause. RO membranes are tight enough and should effectively remove all microplastics from the output water. On a consumer RO system the water will still pass through a few final treatment stages and a few feet of plastic tubing before getting to your glass. Very possible some additional plastic is being introduced in the post membrane stages and delivery but my assumption is that a point of use RO system is going to reasonably effective. There is some chance the manufacturers are omitting the fact that all membranes are bleeding microplastics during use. At the moment I don't think we have enough evidence to say they are and most testing has shown them to be effective as a removal method.
  - RobertRoberts 3y ago
    It seems reverse osmosis is a _cause_ of nanoplastics. https://apnews.com/article/plastic-nano-bottled-drinking-water-contaminate-b77dce04539828207fe55ebac9b27283 https://apnews.com/article/plastic-nano-bottled-drinking-wat...
  - WA 3y ago
    Water filters can be sources of all kinds of germs. Depending on your local water quality, it might make sense to not use them at all.
- zahma 3y ago
  ZeroWater makes a carafe that reduces total dissolved solids to 0 ppm, including PFAs and microplastics, or so they claim. I have tested it with two different monitors, and it is indeed 0 ppm, which is good enough to be considered distilled water by the FDA. The filter does not sustain that level of efficiency for very long if there are lots of solids to clog it (i.e. ymmv depending on your water source. Some people prefilter, but who has space and time for that?). I’m not sure it’s capable of filtering to the nanometer scale, but then again I’m not sure anything can, which is why this is so frightening for life forms. Other devices you can install with some rudimentary plumbing knowledge are BWT or Pentaire reverse osmosis filters. They do a good enough job at filtering, though they waste a lot of water in the process. I use these at work and I the Pentaire allows you to control ppm, which is suitable for coffee aficionados. You can always remineralize your water once you get the junk out.
  - declaredapple 3y ago
    > ZeroWater makes a carafe that reduces total dissolved solids to 0 ppm, including PFAs and microplastics, or so they claim. ZeroWater uses an ion exchange filter - It's my understanding that many (most?) micro plastics are not dissolved and/or are not charged meaning it won't effectively filter most microplastics. Similarly they aren't designed to filter bacteria. > The current system is meant to be used with municipally treated, potable water as the current filter will not remove microbiological contaminants. https://zerowater.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions https://zerowater.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions
    - zahma 3y ago
      They do manage to filter inorganic solids, but I’m not sure about microplastics. I assumed they did, but they’re hesitant to say on their site. Perhaps I mistakenly assumed that if they can eliminate PFAs from water, microplastics are also removable.
- choilive 3y ago
  The problem isn't just the water supply. Its in your food, the soil, your clothes, your furniture, the air. LITERALLY everywhere. Theres a study that was done where a group avoided the use of plastic containers to consume food+water vs a group that only used plastic containers and it showed that it made no significant difference in the amount of microplastics they were consuming.
- XorNot 3y ago
  The vast majority of your plastic exposure is from inhalation due to the degradation of rubber tires on roadways.
SmooL 3y ago
Genuine question: are the health risks really that bad? Plastic has been around for decades - surely also then these micro/nano plastics have been around for decades? I can't help but feel like if there were obvious and large health effects that we'd have noticed by now.
- r0ckarong 3y ago
  The big problem I guess is to establish correlation between precisely the plastics and whatever effects we should "see". We have plenty of cancer, fodd intolerances, fertility problems, mental and other health issue sthat seemingly never existed to this extend but what they're actually caused by is very hard to determine.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    They did exist, and so did various cancers, albeit in lesser concentrations. People mostly died younger and nobody cared nor investigated. And its not that big mystery - people got properly dumb and do literally everything to destroy themselves, and completely ignore advices coming from every direction about healthy living. Its not 'they evil corps', is us(them) dumb shits who can't act like balanced mature adults and contain those few vices you may gather as life goes along. You can't tackle all of it, but most folks are not even trying and just complain. A random example - all guys everywhere would massively benefit from consistently wearing loose pants and underwear if they want to increase their fertility, especially in summer. It would skyrocket in stats. Now show me how popular this 'simple trick' is in mass media. There, maybe 30% of couple infertility cases tackled. I don't want to downplay the topic, the idea that nano-plastic-infested meat is grilled/cooked/even just boiled and eaten by literally everybody... we know what great things high heat does to all plastics, and eating that yummy is probably a bullet train to ruined health decades down the line.
    - lm28469 3y ago
      > There, maybe 30% of couple infertility cases tackled. Any source to back that outrageous number?
simmanian 3y ago
I would like to remind people that... + the primary source of microplastic particle generation in most households is the washing and drying of (plastic) clothes. I don't have evidence to back this up, but I have a feeling you breathe in more plastic fiber particles every time you remove lint from your dryer than you ingest through your mouth the whole year. + the more processed a food is, the higher its microplastic concentration [1] - apparently breaded shrimp is the worst. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/microplastics-fish-chicken-tofu-protein/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/...
- schiffern 3y ago
  Even the simple act of putting on a synthetic shirt or sweatshirt has you at the epicenter of a large "puff" of microplastic dust. Source: put on a hoodie while standing in a sunbeam.
  - simmanian 3y ago
    I am conflicted every time my wife brings home Patagonia she received for free at work
    - ChatGTP 3y ago
      Going to be some sad irony if Patagonia is found out to be responsible for more plastic pollution than they ever thought imaginable. I been wearing their plastic fleeces for years, I guess I’m fucked.
  - therein 3y ago
    I am very concerned by this really. After putting on that hoodie, take a look at your fingertips, and then your eyelashes. Microplastic fibers are everywhere and they are electrostatically attracted to you. At times it will feel like they are chasing you.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Links to paywalled articles will not win you many friends around here
pdonis 3y ago
When you put the numbers in context, they are tiny. For example, consider this comparison: when you take a pill of some drug, say an aspirin tablet, how much of the active ingredient (aspirin in this case) are in that pill? And how many bottles of water would you have to drink to put the same amount of nanoplastics (treating them as an "active ingredient") into your body? Here's a back of the envelope calculation: suppose the concentration of nanoplastics is 10 nanograms per liter (about what is claimed in the article). A liter is about one (fairly large) bottle of water, so say 10 nanograms per bottle. A standard aspirin tablet has 325,000,000 nanograms (325 milligrams) of aspirin in it, or 32.5 million times as much active ingredient. So you would have to drink 32.5 million 1-liter bottles of water to expect the same general order of magnitude of "active ingredient" effects on your body as one aspirin tablet. If you drank one bottle of water per second, it would take you more than 10 years to drink that much water. So I don't see any reason to forgo bottled water on these grounds. Certainly not in favor of tap water, which is much more subject to how careful your municipality's water purification process is (not to mention various possible sources of contamination in the water lines between the purification plant and the water tower and you).
- skeletonhaver 3y ago
  Appreciate the context, but the magnitude of effect of drugs also varies by some orders of magnitude - so it's possible/likely that the concentrations that build up over a lifetime in the body could be having some negative effect.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    > it's possible/likely that the concentrations that build up over a lifetime in the body could be having some negative effect. See my response to globular-toast downthread.
- thfuran 3y ago
  >So you would have to drink 32.5 million 1-liter bottles of water to expect the same general order of magnitude of "active ingredient" effects on your body as one aspirin tablet. Only if aspirin is what the bottle is leeching into the water.
m3kw9 3y ago
If nano plastics are like protein sized wouldn’t the immune system treat it like any other foreign biological materials of similar size?
- XorNot 3y ago
  One thing worth considering is we in fact have a model for this: tattoos, and tattoo-ink. This is in fact the mechanism by which tattoos are removed by laser (the particles are exploded into ones small enough for the immune system to carry off quickly - as opposed to the gradual fading with time which happens). One tattoo is a larger exposure of particulate contaminants to the skin then anyone will ingest in a lifetime from the environmental contamination.
sunshine_reggae 3y ago
That's only 1 reason why you distill all your drinking water.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  I've heard this can cause other problems, do you add minerals back in?
  - fellowniusmonk 3y ago
    What trace minerals would a person get in tap water that they wouldn't get through food in their diet?
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      Distilled water absorbs the minerals back when you drink it so it's removing the ones you got from your diet.
      - ars 3y ago
        Why does that matter? Water contributes like 1% of your mineral intake. Removing it just doesn't matter.
        iancmceachern 3y ago
        It's a thing people say, truth or not, people worry about it
    - iancmceachern 3y ago
      This would be highly dependent in their specific diet. For lots of folks it likely wouldn't cause a problem, for some it would.
jemmyw 3y ago
Pass water through plastic piping, through a filtration system that includes a lot of plastic including plastic membranes, output into a plastic bottle. Then express surprise that the water has a tiny amount of plastic in it.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I wouldn't think this is even the biggest source. Probably half the dust in your house is plastic. Textiles and thread are mostly plastic now and they kick off tiny plastic dust constantly.
bilsbie 3y ago
I’m so annoyed all the water filters are made of plastic
- senectus1 3y ago
  and tend to sell wrapped in a single use plastic, in a cardboard box that often is also plastic wrapped.
leetharris 3y ago
This is just fear porn from an extremely unqualified person (studied finance, has never worked in biology or any science) that has an "AI startup." Their startup, which has 2 employees according to LinkedIn, is billed as such: "Volatile AI researches and innovates in the field of chemical analysis and molecule detection." A finance guy with absolutely no credentials is writing blog posts telling us how dangerous these nanoplastics are while pitching us his startup that can "detect molecules with AI." I hate to see this absolute junk on HackerNews.
- lend000 3y ago
  While I'd agree that the article itself is mediocre, it does list all its sources, which seem perfectly valid. This is just a shallow dismissal and an appeal to authority. It irks me how some people think it's impossible to have enough expertise to contribute to multiple fields without some formal pedigree. That may be true for you, and may even be true for the author of the article, but it's not true as a generalization. If you're going to shit all over someone's work, at least come up with legitimate reasons.
8580 3y ago
It becomes more and more obvious that eventually all plastic needs to be removed, perhaps by a genetically modified bacteria that can digest it.

55 points by adomasm3 3y ago

Are there any consumer devices that are capable of filtering out any amount of micro or nano plastics? I already avoid plastic bottles as much as I reasonably can, and I'd like to make sure my tap water is as not terrible as possible.

metadat 3y ago
A reverse-osmosis water filtration system will significantly reduce the amount of microplastics present.
- untech 3y ago
  The original article suggests that reverse-osmosis filters might generate nanoplastics
monetus 3y ago
Lots of activated charcoal does help to an extent, which is a standard for filters. The more, the better, which inevitably slows the water to a trickle. I use a kichu water filter(1) in an old Brita, but I have had my eye on an a glass dafi pitcher which should hold it aa well. I pack it full, and let it sit for a day if possible - then dump it in another glass pitcher with a little charcoal stick inside that. https://kishucharcoal.com/shop/brita-reuseable-filter-501/ https://kishucharcoal.com/shop/brita-reuseable-filter-501/ As the sibling says, reverse osmosis is the best.
- jna_sh 3y ago
  Doesn’t the post link to an article that suggests reverse osmosis membranes may be responsible for some of these nanoplastics? Am I misreading this?
  - naikrovek 3y ago
    no, you're not misreading.
  - ohthanks 3y ago
    The articles state higher levels in bottled water treated with RO but there are many stages of treatment and delivery involved in industrial scale bottled water production. Unclear if RO itself is the underlying cause. RO membranes are tight enough and should effectively remove all microplastics from the output water. On a consumer RO system the water will still pass through a few final treatment stages and a few feet of plastic tubing before getting to your glass. Very possible some additional plastic is being introduced in the post membrane stages and delivery but my assumption is that a point of use RO system is going to reasonably effective. There is some chance the manufacturers are omitting the fact that all membranes are bleeding microplastics during use. At the moment I don't think we have enough evidence to say they are and most testing has shown them to be effective as a removal method.
- RobertRoberts 3y ago
  It seems reverse osmosis is a _cause_ of nanoplastics. https://apnews.com/article/plastic-nano-bottled-drinking-water-contaminate-b77dce04539828207fe55ebac9b27283 https://apnews.com/article/plastic-nano-bottled-drinking-wat...
- WA 3y ago
  Water filters can be sources of all kinds of germs. Depending on your local water quality, it might make sense to not use them at all.
zahma 3y ago
ZeroWater makes a carafe that reduces total dissolved solids to 0 ppm, including PFAs and microplastics, or so they claim. I have tested it with two different monitors, and it is indeed 0 ppm, which is good enough to be considered distilled water by the FDA. The filter does not sustain that level of efficiency for very long if there are lots of solids to clog it (i.e. ymmv depending on your water source. Some people prefilter, but who has space and time for that?). I’m not sure it’s capable of filtering to the nanometer scale, but then again I’m not sure anything can, which is why this is so frightening for life forms. Other devices you can install with some rudimentary plumbing knowledge are BWT or Pentaire reverse osmosis filters. They do a good enough job at filtering, though they waste a lot of water in the process. I use these at work and I the Pentaire allows you to control ppm, which is suitable for coffee aficionados. You can always remineralize your water once you get the junk out.
- declaredapple 3y ago
  > ZeroWater makes a carafe that reduces total dissolved solids to 0 ppm, including PFAs and microplastics, or so they claim. ZeroWater uses an ion exchange filter - It's my understanding that many (most?) micro plastics are not dissolved and/or are not charged meaning it won't effectively filter most microplastics. Similarly they aren't designed to filter bacteria. > The current system is meant to be used with municipally treated, potable water as the current filter will not remove microbiological contaminants. https://zerowater.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions https://zerowater.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions
  - zahma 3y ago
    They do manage to filter inorganic solids, but I’m not sure about microplastics. I assumed they did, but they’re hesitant to say on their site. Perhaps I mistakenly assumed that if they can eliminate PFAs from water, microplastics are also removable.
choilive 3y ago
The problem isn't just the water supply. Its in your food, the soil, your clothes, your furniture, the air. LITERALLY everywhere. Theres a study that was done where a group avoided the use of plastic containers to consume food+water vs a group that only used plastic containers and it showed that it made no significant difference in the amount of microplastics they were consuming.
XorNot 3y ago
The vast majority of your plastic exposure is from inhalation due to the degradation of rubber tires on roadways.

SmooL 3y ago

Genuine question: are the health risks really that bad? Plastic has been around for decades - surely also then these micro/nano plastics have been around for decades? I can't help but feel like if there were obvious and large health effects that we'd have noticed by now.

r0ckarong 3y ago
The big problem I guess is to establish correlation between precisely the plastics and whatever effects we should "see". We have plenty of cancer, fodd intolerances, fertility problems, mental and other health issue sthat seemingly never existed to this extend but what they're actually caused by is very hard to determine.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  They did exist, and so did various cancers, albeit in lesser concentrations. People mostly died younger and nobody cared nor investigated. And its not that big mystery - people got properly dumb and do literally everything to destroy themselves, and completely ignore advices coming from every direction about healthy living. Its not 'they evil corps', is us(them) dumb shits who can't act like balanced mature adults and contain those few vices you may gather as life goes along. You can't tackle all of it, but most folks are not even trying and just complain. A random example - all guys everywhere would massively benefit from consistently wearing loose pants and underwear if they want to increase their fertility, especially in summer. It would skyrocket in stats. Now show me how popular this 'simple trick' is in mass media. There, maybe 30% of couple infertility cases tackled. I don't want to downplay the topic, the idea that nano-plastic-infested meat is grilled/cooked/even just boiled and eaten by literally everybody... we know what great things high heat does to all plastics, and eating that yummy is probably a bullet train to ruined health decades down the line.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    > There, maybe 30% of couple infertility cases tackled. Any source to back that outrageous number?

simmanian 3y ago

I would like to remind people that... + the primary source of microplastic particle generation in most households is the washing and drying of (plastic) clothes. I don't have evidence to back this up, but I have a feeling you breathe in more plastic fiber particles every time you remove lint from your dryer than you ingest through your mouth the whole year. + the more processed a food is, the higher its microplastic concentration [1] - apparently breaded shrimp is the worst. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/microplastics-fish-chicken-tofu-protein/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/...

schiffern 3y ago
Even the simple act of putting on a synthetic shirt or sweatshirt has you at the epicenter of a large "puff" of microplastic dust. Source: put on a hoodie while standing in a sunbeam.
- simmanian 3y ago
  I am conflicted every time my wife brings home Patagonia she received for free at work
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    Going to be some sad irony if Patagonia is found out to be responsible for more plastic pollution than they ever thought imaginable. I been wearing their plastic fleeces for years, I guess I’m fucked.
- therein 3y ago
  I am very concerned by this really. After putting on that hoodie, take a look at your fingertips, and then your eyelashes. Microplastic fibers are everywhere and they are electrostatically attracted to you. At times it will feel like they are chasing you.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Links to paywalled articles will not win you many friends around here

pdonis 3y ago

When you put the numbers in context, they are tiny. For example, consider this comparison: when you take a pill of some drug, say an aspirin tablet, how much of the active ingredient (aspirin in this case) are in that pill? And how many bottles of water would you have to drink to put the same amount of nanoplastics (treating them as an "active ingredient") into your body? Here's a back of the envelope calculation: suppose the concentration of nanoplastics is 10 nanograms per liter (about what is claimed in the article). A liter is about one (fairly large) bottle of water, so say 10 nanograms per bottle. A standard aspirin tablet has 325,000,000 nanograms (325 milligrams) of aspirin in it, or 32.5 million times as much active ingredient. So you would have to drink 32.5 million 1-liter bottles of water to expect the same general order of magnitude of "active ingredient" effects on your body as one aspirin tablet. If you drank one bottle of water per second, it would take you more than 10 years to drink that much water. So I don't see any reason to forgo bottled water on these grounds. Certainly not in favor of tap water, which is much more subject to how careful your municipality's water purification process is (not to mention various possible sources of contamination in the water lines between the purification plant and the water tower and you).

skeletonhaver 3y ago
Appreciate the context, but the magnitude of effect of drugs also varies by some orders of magnitude - so it's possible/likely that the concentrations that build up over a lifetime in the body could be having some negative effect.
- pdonis 3y ago
  > it's possible/likely that the concentrations that build up over a lifetime in the body could be having some negative effect. See my response to globular-toast downthread.
thfuran 3y ago
>So you would have to drink 32.5 million 1-liter bottles of water to expect the same general order of magnitude of "active ingredient" effects on your body as one aspirin tablet. Only if aspirin is what the bottle is leeching into the water.

m3kw9 3y ago

If nano plastics are like protein sized wouldn’t the immune system treat it like any other foreign biological materials of similar size?

XorNot 3y ago
One thing worth considering is we in fact have a model for this: tattoos, and tattoo-ink. This is in fact the mechanism by which tattoos are removed by laser (the particles are exploded into ones small enough for the immune system to carry off quickly - as opposed to the gradual fading with time which happens). One tattoo is a larger exposure of particulate contaminants to the skin then anyone will ingest in a lifetime from the environmental contamination.

sunshine_reggae 3y ago

That's only 1 reason why you distill all your drinking water.

iancmceachern 3y ago
I've heard this can cause other problems, do you add minerals back in?
- fellowniusmonk 3y ago
  What trace minerals would a person get in tap water that they wouldn't get through food in their diet?
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    Distilled water absorbs the minerals back when you drink it so it's removing the ones you got from your diet.
    - ars 3y ago
      Why does that matter? Water contributes like 1% of your mineral intake. Removing it just doesn't matter.
      - iancmceachern 3y ago
        It's a thing people say, truth or not, people worry about it
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    This would be highly dependent in their specific diet. For lots of folks it likely wouldn't cause a problem, for some it would.

jemmyw 3y ago

Pass water through plastic piping, through a filtration system that includes a lot of plastic including plastic membranes, output into a plastic bottle. Then express surprise that the water has a tiny amount of plastic in it.

Gigachad 3y ago
I wouldn't think this is even the biggest source. Probably half the dust in your house is plastic. Textiles and thread are mostly plastic now and they kick off tiny plastic dust constantly.

bilsbie 3y ago

I’m so annoyed all the water filters are made of plastic

senectus1 3y ago
and tend to sell wrapped in a single use plastic, in a cardboard box that often is also plastic wrapped.

leetharris 3y ago

This is just fear porn from an extremely unqualified person (studied finance, has never worked in biology or any science) that has an "AI startup." Their startup, which has 2 employees according to LinkedIn, is billed as such: "Volatile AI researches and innovates in the field of chemical analysis and molecule detection." A finance guy with absolutely no credentials is writing blog posts telling us how dangerous these nanoplastics are while pitching us his startup that can "detect molecules with AI." I hate to see this absolute junk on HackerNews.

lend000 3y ago
While I'd agree that the article itself is mediocre, it does list all its sources, which seem perfectly valid. This is just a shallow dismissal and an appeal to authority. It irks me how some people think it's impossible to have enough expertise to contribute to multiple fields without some formal pedigree. That may be true for you, and may even be true for the author of the article, but it's not true as a generalization. If you're going to shit all over someone's work, at least come up with legitimate reasons.

8580 3y ago

It becomes more and more obvious that eventually all plastic needs to be removed, perhaps by a genetically modified bacteria that can digest it.