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Boiling tap water may be solution to microplastics (thehill.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In the study, scientists put the three plastic compounds into ‘hard water’ — a common type of U.S. freshwater that contains high levels of calcium carbonate and magnesium

When the plastic-containing water was boiled, these calcium carbonates formed tiny clumps around most of the microscopic plastics, trapping them within and rendering them harmless.

The report comes with significant caveats, however.

Scientists only looked at three of the most common — and in the case of polyethylene and polypropylenes, the safest — plastic polymers. They didn’t look at vinyl chloride, for example, a compound of serious concern last month’s study found in bottled water.

Boiling also didn’t manage to remove all of the polymers.

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[–] fruitycoder 4 points 6 months ago

I'm not sure if there is an effective solution on small scales with reducing the inputs (like buying bottled water to add calcifers and boil is an huge waste of effort to me) but on larger scales this could be useful before introducing water into a water system or activity fighting micro plastic build up in bodies of water conducive to this.