Researchers may have found an effective, green way to remove microplastics from our water using readily available plant materials. Their device was found to capture up to 99.9% of a wide variety of microplastics known to pose a health risk to humans.
There are some established effects, and none of them are good - to be very clear - but my general understanding is that the effects don’t seem to be super super significant, though there’s a lot we don’t know. I’d certainly support efforts to reduce and eliminate them from the environment, including drinking water, but I think the amount of paranoia and fear (that will absolutely be exploited by corporations) is probably a bit overblown. If there were obvious and clear direct health risks, I imagine we’d have noticed them by now, though again, there’s a lot we don’t know.
To put it another way, is the risk so great that I think every family should spend $30 on a filter every few months? Probably not, but I know plenty of companies will cheerfully sell you them anyway just to make people feel better about it.
In retrospect I think I was thinking of PFAS. I’m not sure if that’s technically a microplastic or not. Anyway; I would imagine intaking chemicals that your body is unable to remove effectively is probably bad no matter what it is. As bad as mercury or lead ? Probably not. I guess the question to find out is what thresholds of microplastic content correlate to how much negative health outcomes.
And yeah, the irony of the same corpos that poisoned the worlds water supply with microplastics wanting to sell you a microplastic filter wrapped in plastic container isn’t lost on me and most definitely will happen.