According to a study by Toulouse researchers, 98% of microplastics detected in drinking water, whether in bottles or taps, measure less than 20 micrometers. They detected concentrations “from 19 to 1154 microplastics per liter.”
A few years ago they had massively detected the presence of microplastics on the peaks of the Pyreneeswhere the air should be clean. With their new study, these Toulouse researchers from the CNRS and the University of Toulouse have just shown that the majority of microplastics pass under radars during control subjects during European standards for these pollutants. And yet, these parts of the microscopic polymer are much more dangerous to health, since they are the ones that can cross the intestinal barrier and find themselves in the veins and organs.
The bottles have little or no release of microplastics
One of the goals was to determine whether Europe’s proposed standard was good for detecting and monitoring microplastics in water. “By carrying out the study with the technology that we had already used in the Pyrenees, which makes it possible to measure the particles of a size of a micron 20 micrometers. Gaël Le RouxResearch Director within the Research Center for Biodiversity and Environment.
Once this observation was made and experienced their technique, these scientists wanted to analyze the quality of the drinking water they had checked: both that in the Toulouse Taps and in ten plastic bottles of various mineral waters.
They found concentrations “ranging from 19 to 1154 microplastics per liter” and 17 types of polymers were identified. And they are more common Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyamide 6 (PA6), which allows the famous terephthalate polyethylene (PET) to produce plastic bottles. “This means that if there are other contaminants in the mineral water that can diffuse, the bottle will not be fragmented. It contains other microplastics that may come from capture or filtration steps,” explains Gaël Le Redhead.
More microplastics in the tap
These phases, necessary to avoid the bacteria in bottles being introduced into water sources, can therefore bring other types of contamination, this time microplastic. However, if they contain a certain number, they are much less loaded with microplastics than the pink city’s water. “In the Toulouse tap water sample there are twice as many microplastics as in plastic bottles. They can come from the water network, the pipes, but also from the Garonne”.
For now, this current research focuses on the presence of microplastics in the lakes of the Pyrenees. And the way they were able to reach the top of the massif.