Late final yr, seven U.S. governors from states akin to New Jersey and Michigan and 175 environmental and well being teams filed a authorized petition asking the Environmental Safety Company so as to add microplastics to the listing of monitored pollution. Picture used for consultant functions solely | Photograph credit score: Getty Pictures
The U.S. Environmental Safety Company and the Division of Well being and Human Providers introduced they are going to monitor the influence of microplastics and prescription drugs on consuming water as a primary step to assessing well being dangers and growing new insurance policies.
The joint announcement was hailed by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a victory for President Donald Trump’s “Make America Wholesome Once more” agenda. Its priorities embrace decreasing the variety of childhood vaccines really useful and selling entire meals in new dietary pointers.
EPA will now embrace microplastics and prescription drugs on its sixth listing of potential contaminants, that means they are going to start testing and monitoring below the Protected Ingesting Water Act and, if decided to pose a menace to public water techniques, obtain analysis funding that could possibly be a precursor to future laws.
“You may’t deal with what you may’t measure. You may’t regulate what you may’t perceive,” Kennedy stated at a information convention at EPA headquarters.
Zeldin and the Environmental Safety Company have drawn criticism from MAHA activists for not doing sufficient to handle issues, together with microplastics, and never implementing stricter guidelines relating to pesticides.
“For too lengthy, People have been sounding the alarm about plastic of their consuming water and being ignored. At the moment that ends,” Zeldin stated at a information convention.
Switch primarily based on petition
Late final yr, seven U.S. governors from states akin to New Jersey and Michigan and 175 environmental and well being organizations filed a authorized petition asking the Environmental Safety Company so as to add microplastics to the listing of monitored pollution. The listing is up to date each 5 years.
Microplastics are tiny items of plastic which can be discovered in all places from contained in the human physique to consuming water to deep ocean and Arctic ice. Some research hyperlink them to most cancers and reproductive issues.
Plastics business teams dismissed these research, saying the science was inconclusive in regards to the hurt attributable to microplastics.
Judith Enck, president of Past Plastics and former EPA regional administrator, stated the EPA’s transfer is an “vital first step.”
Kimberly Clever White, vice chairman for regulatory and scientific affairs on the American Chemistry Council, which represents plastics producers, stated her group helps science-based monitoring of microplastics in consuming water.
When Kennedy ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024, he pledged to sort out plastic air pollution, together with plastic manufacturing. He later endorsed Republican candidate Trump, however the Trump administration final yr warned international locations in opposition to any try and cap plastic manufacturing below a United Nations treaty that would curb plastic air pollution.
Prescription drugs enter the water system by way of improper disposal and human waste.
EPA additionally plans to launch human well being benchmarks for the 374 medication it should monitor.
