Estimated read time: 3 minutes
When we think about sewage pollution, most of us imagine a pipe spewing murky brown water. Similarly, when we think about plastic pollution, we picture litter on beaches, in lakes, and streams—maybe even floating alongside us while we're trying to enjoy the water. But what if I told you that the same plastics polluting our oceans are also inside of us, even in our poop?
As a public health professional, I was shocked to learn that microplastics—the tiny particles that result when larger plastic items break down—aren’t just in the environment. They’re inside our bodies, even in our poop. How does this even happen? It’s hard to believe!
Thinking about microplastics in my body makes me imagine the ‘Magic School Bus’. (One of the greatest cartoons for us elder millennials.) Remember that episode where Ms. Frizzle takes her class on a journey inside the human body? Imagine that, but when they reach the stomach, it’s filled with microplastics! Terrifying, right? And it gets worse—the microplastics travel through the body and end up in our poop. Could our insides one day look like the stomach of an albatross, filled with plastic?
Several studies have shown that microplastics are not just in our oceans but in human fecal matter as well. Research indicates that the average person might ingest up to 5 grams of microplastics every week—the equivalent of eating a credit card.
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These microplastics, often smaller than 5 millimeters, are tinier than what most sewage treatment plants can remove using standard processes. They’re even tinier than what drinking water facilities can filter out, leaving a significant portion in our drinking water. This means we are drinking and ingesting these plastics daily.
According to a recent study, microplastics are not only in our drinking water, but all groundwater, surface water and you guessed it, our wastewater too. The researchers also noted that there’s no standard testing to determine the amount of microplastics in our drinking water. This lack of monitoring, combined with the pervasiveness of microplastics, has far-reaching consequences for both our health and the marine environment.
The connection between drinking water and wastewater is straightforward: we consume microplastics, which then pass through our bodies and into our sewage systems. And because sewage treatment plants can't filter out these tiny particles, they end up back in our water sources or are dumped into our lakes, streams, and eventually, the ocean.
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All this plastic is wreaking havoc on the marine environment. Since about half of the world’s population lives within 50 miles of the coast, it’s pretty easy for plastic to end up in the ocean. These microplastics are deposited into rivers and then transported out into the ocean where they are ubiquitous.
We’re more familiar with the idea of plastic bottles or turtles with straws stuck in their noses, but there’s yet another problem with plastics - that they remain in our marine environment as smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. Forever.
There’s no magic wand to remove microplastics or eliminate our dependence on plastic, but there is hope. New plans to phase out single-use plastics could significantly reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in our environment—and ultimately, in our bodies. At OSA, we believe that the less plastic we use, the less plastic we leave in the environment.
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Plastics in sewage and pollution from sewage and wastewater are all connected. The fight against plastic pollution must go hand in hand with efforts to eliminate sewage pollution. Every step we take to reduce plastic use can help protect our water, our wildlife, and ourselves.
Join us at World Water Week to learn more about how we can tackle this issue together. Register for free streaming and tune in on Monday, August 26th for our session, 'From Source to Sea: Advancing Plastic Pollution International Policy.' Let’s work together to create a cleaner, healthier future for our oceans and ourselves.
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