U.S. officials announced a set of coordinated federal actions aimed at addressing microplastics contamination, highlighting growing concern about its potential impact on public health.
At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. outlined new steps involving both water regulation planning and biomedical research.
The EPA said it will, for the first time, include microplastics as a priority contaminant group in its draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List, known as CCL 6. The list identifies substances that may be present in public drinking water systems and guides future research and regulatory decisions under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The draft list, now open for public comment, also introduces pharmaceuticals as a grouped category for the first time. Other entries include per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, disinfection byproducts, dozens of individual chemicals, and several microbes.
Separately, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health announced a new initiative called Systematic Targeting of Microplastics, or STOMP. The program is designed to develop methods to measure, study, and potentially remove microplastics and nanoplastics from the human body.
According to officials, the research effort will focus on three areas. These include improving detection technologies to measure microplastics in water and human tissue, identifying which particles may pose the greatest risks and how they move through the body, and developing approaches to eliminate them.
The announcements were presented as part of a broader federal effort to better understand emerging contaminants in drinking water and their possible health effects.
Following the press conference, agency officials and researchers participated in a panel discussion on microplastics and pharmaceutical contamination. Participants included EPA and ARPA-H representatives, as well as scientists studying environmental exposure and human health.
The EPA said the updated contaminant list will inform future decisions on monitoring and potential regulation, while the STOMP initiative is intended to expand scientific knowledge about how microplastics interact with the human body.
