A river, lake, or reservoir near you could contain plastic pollution that is impossible to spot at a glance.<\/p>\n
A statewide analysis detected microplastics in 76 of the 77 waterways that were tested, pointing to contamination that may be far more common than it appears.<\/p>\n
What’s happening?<\/p>\n
In a recent report<\/a>, Environment Texas Research & Policy Center said microplastics turned up at 99% of the sites it analyzed in Texas.<\/p>\n That assessment combined samples from 17 locations with data from 60 additional waterways.<\/p>\n The sites spanned a wide range of Texas waters, stretching from Brownsville to the Red River and including rivers, reservoirs, state parks, ponds in city parks, and the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n Even so, volunteers often reported little or no visible plastic waste along banks and shorelines, though testing still found microplastics in nearly every body of water.<\/p>\n Microplastics are bits of plastic smaller than 5 millimeters, or less than the size of a grain of rice.<\/p>\n They can form as larger plastic items slowly break apart, and they can also come from sources like fibers shed by synthetic clothing and industrial pellets known as nurdles.<\/p>\n Fibers were the most common material found, appearing in 96% of samples. Fragments were detected in 69%, film in 26%, and nurdles in 14%.<\/p>\n Why does it matter?<\/p>\n One of the clearest takeaways is that a waterway can look clean and still contain plastic pollution.<\/p>\n That means people who fish, swim, boat, or spend time around lakes and rivers could be encountering contamination they cannot see.<\/p>\n Those results add to ongoing concerns about the effects of microplastics on ecosystems and human health.<\/p>\n Plastic contamination has already been documented in some of the world’s most extreme places, including deep ocean environments and the summit of Mount Everest.<\/p>\n Many of the tested sites are places communities depend on for recreation, wildlife habitat, and water storage.<\/p>\n Plastic does not biodegrade the way compostable material does; instead, it persists while breaking into smaller and smaller pieces.<\/p>\n What’s being done?<\/p>\n The report notes that personal choices alone will not solve the problem and that policy action is needed to reduce microplastic pollution.<\/p>\n Its recommendations call for phasing out single-use plastics and blocking policies that would expand plastic production and related petrochemical infrastructure.<\/p>\n Researchers also are urging tougher action on plastic pellet pollution.<\/p>\n According to the report, Texas has 36 facilities that make the pellets used in plastic products, and more than 10 trillion pellets end up in waters worldwide each year.<\/p>\n Environment Texas Research & Policy Center supports a zero-discharge standard that would prohibit pellet releases while strengthening monitoring and enforcement.<\/p>\n Other proposals include passing a bottle bill, reversing Texas’ ban on local bag bans, and requiring filters on new washing machines to trap synthetic fibers before they reach waterways.<\/p>\n For pollution carried by runoff, the report highlights green infrastructure such as rain gardens, permeable pavement, and tree planting to help reduce the microplastics stormwater carries into rivers and lakes.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A river, lake, or reservoir near you could contain plastic pollution that is impossible to spot at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[138302,123078,4960,138303,27,29,28,45494],"class_list":["post-393031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-contamination","tag-microplastics","tag-plastic-pollution","tag-plastic-production","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-waterways"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}