Do water filters remove microplastics? In this article, you'll discover if water filters remove microplastics and exactly which ones you can purchase to create the best water you can!
What Are Microplastics?
You may have seen the photos; plastic bottles and trash strewn across beaches, fish tangled in discarded netting or swimming amongst plastic bottles and bird’s nesting in piles of rubbish along shorelines.
Microplastics are plastic particles with a diameter of less than 5 mm and are mostly unseen by the naked eye. These little pieces of litter floating in our water, soil and air aren't biodegradable and contribute significantly to spreading marine debris across beaches worldwide.
Microplastics Is A “Pandemic” Of It’s Own Kind!
The rate at which plastics decompose can take hundreds or thousands of years—and in the meantime, destroying our environment and our health.
You can often see little pieces of plastic lying on the beaches, where they can make their way into oceans where larger sea animals later consume this toxic waste without knowing what hit ‘em…
Microplastics are any pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters (mm) in length.
Nanoplastics range from 1 to 100 nanometers (nm)
How Do Microplastics React In The Body?
Most bottled water is sold in plastic or polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which are known hormone and endocrine disruptors. Being non biodegradable, once they are in the body they accumulate over time causing anything from bowel issues to hormonal issues.
These chemicals are linked with developmental, reproductive, brain, immune, and other problems.
People with inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, have more microplastics in their feces according to new research in Environmental Science & Technology.
Studies show that microplastics exist in 83% of the world’s tap water too.
Microplastics are a massive environmental crisis, and yet many people are completely unaware of the damage done to both the environment and the body.
Prevention is better than cure, so finding practical ways to avoid consuming microplastics rather than constantly detoxing them makes better sense.
Do Water Filters Remove Microplastics?
Yes, water filters successfully reduce or remove microplastics from drinking water.
According to the research conducted by Orb Media, microplastics can be as small as 2.5 microns. So the best way to remove them is by a filtration medium as small or smaller than 2.5 microns.
The finer the cartridge or membrane, the more plastics it will remove.
If you wish to use a water filter to remove microplastics from your drinking water, check out our collection of benchtop or undersink water filters to REDUCE microplastics, and Reverse Osmosis Filters to REMOVE microplastics.
Contact us anytime if you have any questions, we’d be happy to help.
Best Water Filters to Remove Microplastics
Best for people on tight budget: Benchtop Gravity Filter with Doulton British Berkefeld Candle
Best for most homes: Ultrapure Benchtop or Undersink Water Filter
Most thorough and best overall: HPF 7 Stage Reverse Omsosis Water Filter
How Do Water Filters Remove Microplastics?
Carbon filters reduce the number of microplastics in the water but don’t remove them altogether.
Granular activated carbon (GAC) filters generally have carbon particle sizes in the range of 0.8 to 1.0 mm. Carbon block filters, on the other hand, are denser than GAC filters. The powdered activated carbon filters generally have carbon particle sizes less than 0.18 mm.
While both carbon filter types will remove some microplastic size fractions they are not as effective as reverse osmosis.
A Reverse Osmosis Filter has a pore size of approximately 0.0001 micron so it’s, by far, best way to remove microplastics (or anything else) from your drinking water due to its ability to completely separate solids from water.
Reverse Osmosis is the best filtration method available, it removes all types of microplastics that you can see in the graph above.
How Do We Reduce Microplastics In Our Environment?
It’s going to take many years to undo the problem we have created for ourselves as a collective.
It’s commonly known, that if we don’t do anything now, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050.
What we can all do:
Limit using single-use plastics. Dispose of any plastic responsibly by recycling and ALWAYS avoid littering. Pick up litter whenever you see it, and it is practical to do so. Wash synthetic clothing less often and use a fiber filter in your washing machine. Do not dispose of dryer lint in the drain. Use a water filter to remove microplastics from your drinking water.
A Healthy Ocean is Vital To Every Living Organism on Earth
If you wish to use a water filter to remove microplastics from your drinking water, check out our collection of benchtop or undersink water filters to REDUCE microplastics, and Reverse Osmosis Filters to REMOVE microplastics.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us, we’d be delighted to help.