Plastic consumption is high and dangerous, CT AG says

Jun 04, 2023

The average human may ingest as much as a credit card's worth of plastic each week. Connecticut Attorney General William Tong wants to change that.

This month Tong led 16 attorneys general in urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to target a pervasive plastic polluter — microfibers — which shed from synthetic clothing into waterways every wash cycle.

"Plastic microfibers are a pervasive, toxic pollutant with potential to cause severe harm to human health and our environment," Tong said in a press release announcing the attorneys general's letter to the EPA and NOAA. "Simple technology exists and is already required overseas to trap these plastics before they enter our waterways and ultimately our bodies. The United States is lagging where we should be leading globally on this emerging global threat. We’re calling on EPA and NOAA to follow its own research and use the full extent of its authority to protect public health and the safety of our oceans."

Per the EPA, microfibers are the single most prevalent form of microplastic pollution.

The tiny threads, which can contain toxic chemicals and are nearly or completely invisible to the naked eye, break off from clothing and other textiles at an estimated rate of 640,000 to 1.5 million fibers per wash cycle.

Households in the U.S. and Canada expel approximately 878 tons of microfibers into the environment each year, according to a 2019 study from Ocean Wise.

Research shows that microplastics enter the human body by eating, drinking, breathing and skin contact. Some studies have estimated that every week, the average person ingests between 0.1 to 5 grams of microplastics. The high end of that range is enough material to render a plastic credit card.

But scientists caution that the overall amount may not matter — the smallest particles are likely to cause the most damage because they are more easily absorbed by the body.

Other investigations cited in the attorney general's letter have found the presence of microplastics in blood, breast milk and even the placenta. The fear is that these plastic particles will act as endocrine disrupters with devastating impacts on human health.

"Research reflects that the consumption and inhalation of microplastic and microfibers can be associated with hormonal cancers, reproductive problems including infertility, metabolic disorders including diabetes and obesity, asthma, and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism," the attorney general's office said in its press release.

Each cubic meter of Long Island Sound contains 5,000 microfibers, according to estimates from the University of Connecticut published by Save the Sound.

But the contamination is not exclusive to saltwater bodies. Ryan O’Donnell, the manager of the Connecticut River Conservancy's Water Quality Monitoring Program, said that even the river flowing through your backyard likely has microplastic contamination.

Between 2021 and 2022, volunteers from the CRC collected liter jars of Connecticut River water from 13 sites in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

"The most common thing that we found were blue fibers. Having looked at them under the microscope, they look kind of like what you would expect to come out of your dryer lint trap," O’Donnell said. "It's pretty clear that they’re coming from clothes."

Not a single sample from the CRC study was free of microfibers — even specimens from the most remote headwater site in HO Cook State Forest in Heath, Massachusetts still had microplastics present.

"We all know that microplastics are everywhere, but it's another thing to see it," O’Donnell said. "I hope that it would encourage both personal decisions to keep plastic out of the environment and then also policy decisions."

In 2018, the Connecticut State Legislature sought to mandate clothing labels that would "alert consumers of the presence of synthetic microfibers in an article of clothing prior to the purchase," and explain "the process by which such microfibers are shed from clothing and are dispersed in the state's waterways."

The labeling measure did not make it to the final legislation, but the bill that ultimately passed created a microfiber pollution working group to develop "a consumer awareness and education program concerning the presence of synthetic microfiber pollution."

In its final report to the General Assembly, that working group issued several recommendations to consumers, clothing manufacturers and appliance manufacturers to reduce microfiber pollution that emphasized problem awareness

Consumers were encouraged to "wash clothes only as needed, select higher quality garments that shed less, and use existing technologies such as the Guppy Friend, Cora Ball and external filters" that catch microfibers before they exit washing machine outflows.

The working group said clothing producers should "continue supporting research that includes developing a standard testing protocol for determining shedding rates, identifying lower shedding fabrics, investigating environmentally safe additives to clothing to decrease or eliminate shedding, and providing point of sale information to the consumer."

The report said that even if consumers and clothing manufacturers take the above actions, "there is still a need to capture the remaining microfibers released. Neither of the preliminary steps will result in an immediate and complete elimination of microfiber pollution." Working group members said "The final best chance to remove microfibers is through an internal filter in the washing machine" — an available technology that is not commercially implemented in most washing machines.

In a letter to the EPA and NOAA, Tong asked the agencies to…

The attorneys general of California, Delaware, Washington D.C., Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin joined in signing the letter, which highlighted widespread microfiber contamination, potential threats to human health and EPA-identified solutions.

Connecticut environmentalists applauded Tong's efforts, saying that the EPA and NOAA should take regulatory action to curb microfiber pollution immediately.

"The US is lagging behind other nations in implementing solutions to plastic microfiber pollution. We are grateful for Attorney General Tong's leadership to put regulations in place to address the serious impact of plastic microfiber pollution on public health and our waterways. EPA and NOAA should waste no time in getting this done," Sierra Club Connecticut Chair Susan Eastwood said.

Save the Sound said the agencies must address the "mounting problem" of microfibers, which their Senior Legal Director Roger Reynolds said poses an "enormous threat to Long Island Sound and the environment."

"Microplastics are appearing throughout ecosystems and in a wide variety of fish and shellfish that people consume," Reynolds said. "The Clean Water Act has made great progress in cleaning our waters to make them truly swimmable and fishable, but unless we deploy it against today's threats, we seriously risk moving backwards and losing ground in our efforts to protect clean water and public health."

Sign up for email newsletters