Bill > SR99

Introduced Session

This resolution urges the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to adopt drinking water standards for microplastics and nanoplastics. Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that are less than five millimeters in length. Nanoplastics, a subset of microplastics, are even smaller plastic particles less than one micrometer in length, which is about the size of a bacterium and small enough to be undetectable by the naked eye. Microplastics and nanoplastics come from a variety of sources, some which are intentionally designed, such as microbeads, which are tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added as an exfoliant to health and beauty products. However, most microplastics and nanoplastics are formed when larger pieces of plastic degrade into progressively smaller pieces. Microplastics and nanoplastics pass easily through water filtration systems and have been found in surface waters worldwide. Nanoplastics are found in bottled water, and a recent study from Columbia University found an average of 250,000 plastic particles in an average bottle of water, of which 90 percent were nanoplastics. Microplastics and nanoplastics are likely present in many other food products, such as meat due to plastic packaging, tap water, storm water, and even the air we breathe through synthetic textiles, construction materials, and landfills. Nanoplastics are small enough to enter the bodies of humans, pass through the intestines and lungs, and enter directly into the bloodstream, where they can travel to other organs, such as the heart and brain, invade individual cells, and even cross through the placenta to the bodies of unborn babies. Though there is limited human data on the health effects of microplastics and nanoplastics due to a lack of research, some recent studies suggest that exposure to microplastics and nanoplastics can cause negative health effects in humans by causing oxidative stress, inflammation, immune dysfunction, altered biochemical and energy metabolism, impaired cell proliferation, disrupted microbial metabolic pathways, abnormal organ development, and carcinogenicity. Plastic, unlike natural organic matter, does not change composition when it degrades, but divides and redivides into smaller and smaller particles of the same chemical composition for thousands of years, with no theoretical limit in size, and likely accumulates in the human body where it will remain until death. In 2024, the EPA announced final drinking water standards for six individual perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) substances, which was the first time that drinking water standards have been finalized for a new chemical under the Safe Drinking Water Act since it was last updated in 1996. The EPA should set drinking water standards for acceptable levels of microplastics and nanoplastics in drinking water, as it has recently done for PFAS, but the EPA has declined to do so. Furthermore, a 2019 petition signed by 280 environmental organizations, including the WHO, public health, indigenous, and community non-governmental organizations, has urged the EPA to update plastics regulations under the Clean Water Act, which regulates the quality of, and discharges to, waters of the United States. The EPA's lack of action has permitted the plastics industry to continue to operate under largely unchanged standards from the original passage of the Clean Water Act fifty years ago which fail to limit the widespread proliferation of microplastics and nanoplastics.

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Linda Greenstein (D)*,  Bob Smith (D)*, 

Filed with Secretary of State (on 06/28/2024)

Official Document