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 Studies over the past year on plastic particles detected in tap and
bottled water have sparked public concerns but the limited data
appears reassuring, the U.N. agency said its first report on
potential health risks associated with ingestion.
Microplastics enter drinking water sources mainly through run-off
and wastewater effluent, the WHO said. Evidence shows that
microplastics found in some bottled water seem to be at least partly
due to the bottling process and/or packaging such as plastic caps,
it said.
"The headline message is to reassure drinking water consumers around
the world, that based on this assessment, our assessment of the risk
is that it is low," Bruce Gordon of the WHO's department of public
health, environmental and social determinants of health, told a
briefing.
The WHO did not recommended routine monitoring for microplastics in
drinking water. But research should focus on issues including what
happens to chemical additives in the particles once they enter the
gastrointestinal tract, it said.
The majority of plastic particles in water are larger than 150
micrometres in diameter and are excreted from the body, while
"smaller particles are more likely to cross the gut wall and reach
other tissues," it said.
Health concerns have centered around smaller particles, said
Jennifer De France, a WHO technical expert and one of the report's
authors.
"For these smallest size particles, where there is really limited
evidence, we need know more about what is being absorbed, the
distribution and their impacts," she said.
More research is needed into risks from microplastics exposure
throughout the environment - "in our drinking water, air and food,"
she added.
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Alice Horton, a microplastics researcher at Britain’s National
Oceanography Center, said in a statement on the WHO's findings:
"There are no data available to show that microplastics pose a
hazard to human health, however this does not necessarily mean that
they are harmless".
“It is important to put concerns about exposure to microplastics
from drinking water into context: we are widely exposed to
microplastics in our daily lives via a wide number of sources, of
which drinking water is just one."
Plastic pollution is so widespread in the environment that you may
be ingesting five grams a week, the equivalent of eating a credit
card, a study commissioned by the environmental charity WWF
International said in June. That study said the largest source of
plastic ingestion was drinking water, but another major source was
shellfish.
The biggest overall health threat in water is from microbial
pathogens - including from human and livestock waste entering water
sources - that cause deadly diarrhoeal disease, especially in poor
countries lacking water treatment systems, the WHO said.
Some 2 billion people drink water contaminated with faeces, causing
nearly 1 million deaths annually, Gordon said, adding: "That has got
to be the focus of regulators around the world."
(Reporting and writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Additional reporting by
Kate Kelland in London; Editing by Frances Kerry)
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