Austin News

Washington, D.C. – On May 12, U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Ranking Member of the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee, led a group of more than 70 Members in urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to use its existing authority under the Clean Water Act to protect our drinking water and the environment by strengthening its regulation of microplastic pollution.

Plastic never fully decomposes—instead breaking down into small bits and pieces that remain in our ecosystems and pollute the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and so much more. Microplastics are everywhere—from Mount Everest to the Mariana Trench, in birds and newborn children—carrying toxic chemicals everywhere and risking our health and environment. On average, adults intake about 320,000 microplastic particles annually.

“Plastic pollution is not just affecting our oceans and marine life—it’s flowing in our bloodstreams and lingering on nearly every object we touch. Regulating microplastics as hazardous waste will protect our health and our environment,” said Congressman Doggett, “The climate crisis is already taking lives and impacting everything, everywhere, all at once. As plastic pollution saturates our planet and our bodies, the Biden Administration should take every reasonable step to protect our planet and our health from microscopic poisons.”

“Plastics are riddled with toxic chemicals, but their tiny size allows microplastics to infiltrate our environment, our food chain and our bodies unnoticed,” said Dr. Anja Brandon, Associate Director of U.S. Plastics Policy at Ocean Conservancy and an environmental engineer. “Who doesn’t wish we had taken action on lead, DDT, or PFAS earlier? We need to be treating microplastics the same way we treat other pollutants. These are actions that the EPA can and must take now to address this growing threat.”

“Microplastics of all kinds — from degraded secondary plastics to pre-production plastics like nurdles, wreak havoc on our coastal communities, economies, and ecosystems.” said Alex Ortiz, Water Resources Specialist at the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter. “These materials not only pose serious threats to human health through bioaccumulation and biomagnification of toxic chemicals, they also cause widespread damage to fish and oyster populations, which are integral to our communities’ wellbeing. It’s about time that EPA takes action on this pervasive form of pollution.”

To meet the urgency of this moment, the Members urged the EPA to take the following actions to remediate and prevent future harm from microplastics:

1. Issue national drinking water standards for microplastics
2. Regulate microplastics as hazardous waste
3. Establish limitations for industrial and general stormwater runoff to contain zero microplastics
4. Publish the final version of their joint report with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on microfiber pollution and pursue their recommended actions with an urgent timeline
5. Increase research and outreach within the Trash Free Waters program to improve our understanding of microplastics

Letter Endorsements: Ocean Conservancy, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Public Citizen, Indivisible, Center for Popular Democracy, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice

Read the text of the letter, with the full list of signatories, here.

Original source can be found here.