Environmental pollution through plastic is increasingly getting hazardous. Researchers conducted a study recently at the Washington State University to find how nanoscale plastic pieces get into the environment. Although the sand contains silica to block the plastic, but it is of only little help. The nanoscale particles from the plastic get trapped in the organic matter during the decomposition process. And all of this largely depends on the type and variety of plastic that interacts with the waste.
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Environmental Pollution- Plastic in drinking water
The researchers published their work in the journal called, “Water Research”. It talks extensively about the methods to prevent pervasive plastic from spreading environmental pollution. Now, when plastic is discarded, its breakdown involves various chemical, mechanical and biological processes. These processes break the plastic into nanoscale and micro-scale particles. And are less than 100 nanometers in size. The most common found plastic particle is that of polyethylene. It is of comparable size to silicon or organic matter and thus passes through them easily. The hard fact here is that the plastic remodels itself with the change in water chemistry. And thus ditches the silica present in the sand.
Researchers of the study:
Indranil Chowdhury, Mehnaz Shams, and Iftaykhairul Alam are the researchers of the study. And Indranil quotes, “People have seen these plastics escaping into our drinking water. And our current drinking water system is not adequate to remove these micro and nanoscale plastics. This work is the first fundamental way to look at those mechanisms.” The team also highlights an astonishing fact about the intake of plastic in humans’ diet. It is that a 2019 study revealed that people depending largely on tap drinking water consume more than 5 grams of plastic in a week. This shows that our current filter systems for drinking water are highly incapable.
