Each year, 8 million metric tons of plastics enter oceans, adding to the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate marine environments, according to Ocean Conservancy.
You can take action to protect your health and the environment from harmful plastics.
Here’s how: Filter Your Water Start by ensuring that the water you and your family drink is both healthy and safe.
Using a water filtration system can help eliminate harmful microplastics present in your drinking water and minimise the need for single-use plastic bottles and pollution.
Note: Not all water filters remove microplastics, so knowing which filters address this issue is important as you make a decision.
Water filtration products remove chemicals, bacteria, odours, bad taste and 99.999 per cent of microplastics from contaminated water, enabling access to safe drinking water on-demand nearly anywhere.
This is higher protection than the standard carbon-based filters that are available on the market.
Try re-usable storage bags or items made of compostable material.
To improve your family’s wellness and protect the planet, think water.
Avoid consuming microplastics, invest in filtration, and prevent more plastic from contaminating our oceans and environment by shopping responsibly and supporting brands that share these values.

Because of nitrate levels, the school has been using bottled water since January of this year.
Jerry Brown has asked the Legislature to enact a statewide tax on drinking water to fix wells and treatment systems in distressed communities.
Residents and businesses would pay a tax on their monthly water bills, while agriculture would contribute through taxes on fertilizer purchases and fees paid by dairy farmers and feedlot operators.
Related stories from Sacramento Bee Does your water district fail to comply with drinking water standards?
In the Valley, 185,000 residents are served by water systems deemed out of compliance by the state water board.
Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 / 1:31 Avoiding tap water just part of life in Dos Palos Advertisement Some Dos Palos residents say they avoid drinking tap water and choose to buy bottled water in Dos Palos, Calif., on Wednesday, May 23, 2018.
Water problems, however, aren’t limited to the San Joaquin Valley.
The school plans on installing a new well and treatment system, funded with state grants, by the end of summer.
The Association of California Water Agencies, which represents the big urban suppliers, is trying to kill the bill.
Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 / 2:55 5 most common toxins found in California drinking water Advertisement These five common contaminants are most likely to be found in California’s drinking water.

Because of nitrate levels, the school has been using bottled water since January of this year.
Jerry Brown has asked the Legislature to enact a statewide tax on drinking water to fix wells and treatment systems in distressed communities.
Residents and businesses would pay a tax on their monthly water bills while agriculture would contribute through taxes on fertilizer purchases and fees paid by dairy farmers and feedlot operators.
In the Valley, 185,000 residents are served by water systems deemed out of compliance by the state water board.
Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 / 1:31 Avoiding tap water just part of life in Dos Palos Advertisement Some Dos Palos residents say they avoid drinking tap water and choose to buy bottled water in Dos Palos, Calif., on Wednesday, May 23, 2018.
Water problems, however, aren’t limited to the San Joaquin Valley.
The school plans on installing a new well and treatment system, funded with state grants, by the end of summer.
Since 2014, it also has disbursed $43 million in Proposition 1 water-bond funds for community water tanks, filtration systems and other upgrades.
The Association of California Water Agencies, which represents the big urban suppliers, is trying to kill the bill.
Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 / 2:55 5 most common toxins found in California drinking water Advertisement These five common contaminants are most likely to be found in California’s drinking water.

Their aim is to collect 90 percent of all PET bottles by 2025 as an EU average, ensuring discarded plastic containers can be converted into rPET.
The federation will also collaborate with the recycling industry to only use 25 percent rPET of new bottles by 2025, highlighting the industry’s commitment to closing the circular economy.
The EFBW, which represents Europe’s bottled water producers, pointed out that all packaging used by the industry is recyclable including its glass, PET and aluminium.
EFBW president Jean-Pierre Deffis said: “Building on our longstanding sustainable approach to resource management, we are committed to achieving these industry-wide actions.
PET drink bottles already achieve the highest recycling rate of any plastic packaging material in the EU.
But even one bottle ending up as litter is one too many.
“It will take a concerted, coordinated effort from many different value-chain actors to drive positive change.
Recyclers are eager to embark on this new journey.
Today PET recyclers do not have enough feedstock to supply the market.
EFBW members will also engage with consumers, who play a vital role in preventing littering, while supporting initiatives to encourage the proper disposal of PET packaging.

That water bottle you just purchased is likely contaminated with microplastic particles, according to a new investigation from researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia and journalism organization Orb Media.
Through an analysis of 259 water bottles from 11 brands sold across nine countries, including the United States, scientists found 93 percent were contaminated with an average of 10.4 plastic particles per liter of water.
That’s twice the amount of contamination typically found in tap water.
Tests on major brands of bottled water have found that nearly all of them contained tiny particles of plastic https://t.co/24xphZnUjl #BBCNewsTen pic.twitter.com/MLw67mQp2r — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 14, 2018 Major brand names such as Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino were among the water bottles tested.
"In this study, 65 percent of the particles we found were actually fragments and not fibers," lead researcher Sherri Mason told AFP.
The particles are likely a result of the industrial bottling and plastic packaging process.
But the effects of these chemicals on human health, scientists say, are still unclear.
“As much as 90 percent of ingested plastic could pass through a human body, but some of it may end up lodged in the gut, or traveling through the lymphatic system, according to research by the European Food Safety Authority,” Time reported.
Previous research has linked synthetic chemicals often found in plastic to “certain kinds of cancer to lower sperm count to increases in conditions like ADHD and autism,” Mason said, prompting calls for further studies on the possible health implications of plastics pollution.
© 2018 Cox Media Group.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia tested 259 individual bottles from 27 different lots across 11 major brands in nine countries.
They found 93 percent of the water showed “some sign” of contamination.
Scientists found 10.4 percent of plastic particles per one liter of water, which is twice as much as a previous study on tap water found.
Leading international brands in the study included Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life, and San Pellegrino.
Polypropylene, nylon and polyethylene terephthalate were among the contaminants found in the water.
Data suggests contamination is at least partially coming from the packaging and the bottling process itself, according to researchers.
At this time, researchers are not clear if consuming the particles will have any health effects.
(Copyright (c) 2018 Sunbeam Television.
All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

That water bottle you just purchased is likely contaminated with microplastic particles, according to a new investigation from researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia and journalism organization Orb Media.
Through an analysis of 259 water bottles from 11 brands sold across nine countries, including the United States, scientists found 93 percent were contaminated with an average of 10.4 plastic particles per liter of water.
That’s twice the amount of contamination typically found in tap water.
Tests on major brands of bottled water have found that nearly all of them contained tiny particles of plastic https://t.co/24xphZnUjl #BBCNewsTen pic.twitter.com/MLw67mQp2r — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 14, 2018 Major brand names such as Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestle Pure Life and San Pellegrino were among the water bottles tested.
"In this study, 65 percent of the particles we found were actually fragments and not fibers," lead researcher Sherri Mason told AFP.
The particles are likely a result of the industrial bottling and plastic packaging process.
But the effects of these chemicals on human health, scientists say, are still unclear.
“As much as 90 percent of ingested plastic could pass through a human body, but some of it may end up lodged in the gut, or traveling through the lymphatic system, according to research by the European Food Safety Authority,” Time reported.
Previous research has linked synthetic chemicals often found in plastic to “certain kinds of cancer to lower sperm count to increases in conditions like ADHD and autism,” Mason said, prompting calls for further studies on the possible health implications of plastics pollution.
© 2018 Cox Media Group.

The large beverage companies maintain that the impacts of more plastic circulating around the world can be mitigating by through better recycling programs, as well packaging innovations such as plant-based PET bottles.
“PepsiCo is already one of the largest purchasers of recycled PET in the consumer goods industry,” said Roberta Barbieri, vice president of global water and environmental solutions at PepsiCo in Purchase, N.Y. “We have set a goal that, by 2025, 100 percent of our packaging will be designed to be recyclable, compostable, or biodegradable.” Two Words: Plastic Pollution Despite the amount of shade being cast at bottled water, the industry keeps booming.
That global number could could surge to a 324 billion by 2021, according to the market research firm Euromonitor “All of that plastic takes a tremendous amount of fossil fuels to make,” said Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, an environmental group largely focused on water and climate.
Glieck told Bloomberg Environment it takes about 25 million barrels of oil per year just to produce the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic used in most single-used bottles.
“We need to find better materials to make bottles that include recycled and renewable content, and of course reduce environmental impacts by making fewer disposable bottles in the first place,” Darby Hoover, senior resource specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, told Bloomberg Environment.
“Right now, the recycling rate for the plastics used in these bottles is only about 30 percent, meaning that 70 percent still ends up in landfills.
Bottle vs.
“They more they take, the more it creates this wedge between people and their municipal drinking water supply.” Kirkwood pointed out that bottled water companies compete directly with municipal systems and cost hundreds of times more than tap water.
Companies Push Back But beverage companies reject the idea that bottled water represents a kind of existential threat to tap water.
Some nations are forced to import water when domestic sources are not potable or are insufficient for immediate needs, as is the case in some Pacific Islands during drought.

There are currently more than 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste sitting in landfills or accumulating in the ocean, where it chokes and poisons marine life.
maxthanakorn/Shutterstock London-based bottled water company Choose Water has developed a biodegradable and recyclable water bottle with the intention of reducing the amount of toxin-laden, ocean-smothering plastic containers that are used and tossed every day.
The vessel is made from 100 percent recycled paper pulp that is vacuum formed around a sustainably sourced watertight lining and topped with a thin steel cap, according to inventor and company founder James Longcroft.
So no matter where it ends up, it won’t do any damage,” Choose Water states on their IndieGoGo campaign page.
A recent study has calculated that a staggering 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic products have been produced since the 1950s, and 79 percent of these items were not recycled or incinerated.
Putting his University of Durham chemistry degree to good use, Longcroft spent a year tinkering with formulas for a fully functional yet fully guilt-free design.
The end result is his proprietary waterproof lining material that prevents leaks when in use but begins to break down immediately when submerged in water or exposed to the conditions of a landfill.
The production is only 5 pence (7 cents) more per unit than that of creating a plastic container.
The £25,000 target of the IndieGoGo campaign will reportedly help work out a few last-minute design improvements and expand the scope of production.
“We can’t get our bottles onto shelves without you guys.

To the Editor: As the bottlers of Berkshire Mountain Spring Water, we hope the voters in Great Barrington will reject the proposed ban on bottled water in containers 1 liter and smaller in size.
Berkshire Springs Inc. is a family-owned and -operated small business that has​ ​been bottling at our spring water source in Southfield since 1970​.
Our customers choose our spring water over tap water for both taste and health preferences.
There is a myth that tap water is more strictly regulated than bottled water.
Our water is tested daily in-house, weekly by an outside lab and extensively on an annual basis.
We meet the highest standards set by the five New England states, plus New York and New Jersey where we are licensed.
The single-serve bottles of spring water are a convenient and healthy choice for those who do not want to purchase soft drinks, teas, energy drinks and any other beverages that are also​ sold in single-serve, plastic containers.
These PET bottles are recyclable and have many uses as a recycled material.
Berkshire Springs’ bottling plant recycles the single-serve bottles as well as unusable 5- and 3-gallon bottles, plastic wrap, all discarded caps and cardboard.
Please rethink this proposed bottled water ban and focus your efforts on recycling all plastic containers, which can be used in many new ways.