- The World Health Organization(WHO) will be releasing it’s report on the presence of microplastics in drinking water.
- The report will examine the potential human health risks associated with exposure to microplastics in the environment.
- Microplastics are plastics which are less than five mm in diameter in size.
- They enter the environment either as primary industrial products such as those used in scrubbers and cosmetics or via urban waste water and broken-down elements of articles discarded by consumers.
- Earlier,various studies were conducted to determine microplastics in bottle water.However,most of these studies had ended by saying there is a lack of data to know the impact of microplastics consumed via drinking water.
- The WHO study will elaborate as to how different microplastics cause different health impacts and how the chemicals that are attached to them come from various sources of environment and impact our health specifically.
- The WHO study will also enumerates as to how the biofilms which are microorganisms that grow on these microplastics cause toxicity to us.
- The report will also pegs certain water treatment methods as the ones which can be used to minimise the occurrence of microplastics in water besides ways and means of reducing their very presence in the environment.
