Stricter Microplastics Regulations Are on the Horizon. Here’s How California Manufacturers Should Prepare

According to the American Chemical Association, the average American consumes up to 121,000 microplastic particles each year—through air, water, and soil—and people who drink only bottled water could consume an additional 90,000.

Now, California is taking the lead in trying to regulate the presence of microplastics in drinking water, with significant implications for manufacturers in the state and beyond.

Here’s what manufacturers should know about California’s current microplastics requirements—and how they can prepare for future regulations, today.

What Are Microplastics, and Why Do They Matter?

Microplastics are tiny plastic particles manufactured at a small scale (e.g., microbeads in cosmetics) or degraded from larger plastic items. Invisible to the naked eye, their actual composition, like the plastics they come from, can vary considerably—coming in different shapes (e.g., fibers, foams, films and fragments) and polymer types (e.g., polyethylene or polypropylene).

Much is still unknown about microplastics, including the primary pathways through which people are exposed to them and their impact on human health. Some studies, however, suggest that microplastics can act as endocrine disruptors or carcinogens when present in the body.

Currently, there is no EPA-approved method to identify the broad array of microplastics in drinking water, nor is there a standardized water treatment method to remove them.

California’s Present and Future Regulatory Framework

California’s State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is the first government body in the world seeking to establish guidelines for acceptable levels of microplastics in drinking water.

In September 2022, the Board approved testing requirements to detect microplastics in drinking water based on the 2018 California Safe Drinking Water Act: Microplastics, an extension of the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, a federal statute requiring the monitoring and public notification of drinking water contaminants.

This means that select public water systems must now monitor for microplastics over the next four years. The first phase of water testing, which began this fall, focuses on source waters, including surface water, groundwater, or groundwater directly connected to surface waters that supply community water systems serving over 100,000 people. While the timeline for future regulations is uncertain, it will likely depend on the findings from this monitoring.

Notably, as testing continues over the next few years, this focus on source water could indicate that California intends to take a watershed-based approach to regulating microplastics pollution. This could lead to microplastic discharge and treatment regulations not just for public water and wastewater systems, but also at the upstream source of the pollution: those that manufacture, use or discharge microplastics.

These regulations seem likely to take the form of […]

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