Microplastics appear to be in all places – within the air we breathe, the water we drink, the meals we consume. They’ve became up in human organs, blood, testicles, placentas or even brains.
Whilst the total well being penalties of that publicity don’t seem to be but recognized, researchers are exploring possible hyperlinks between microplastics and destructive well being results comparable to male infertility, irritation, liver illness and different metabolic issues, and middle assault or stroke.
Nations have attempted for the previous few years to put in writing an international plastics treaty that would possibly cut back human publicity to plastic debris and their hurt to flora and fauna and ecosystems, however the most recent negotiations collapsed in August 2025. Maximum plastics are made with chemical compounds from fossil fuels, and oil-producing international locations, together with the U.S., have hostile efforts that would possibly restrict plastics manufacturing.
Whilst U.S. and world answers appear a ways off, insurance policies to restrict hurt from microplastics are gaining traction on the state and native ranges.
Marine animals ingest microplastics from the water and as they’re consuming. Those have been present in marine animals on the Hellenic Centre for Marine Analysis close to Athens, Greece, in 2025.
Milos Bicanski/Getty Pictures
As an environmental attorney and writer of the ebook “Our Plastic Problem and How to Solve It,” I see 4 promising coverage methods.
Banning added microplastics: Glitter, confetti and turf
Some microplastics are intentionally manufactured to be small and added to merchandise. Assume glitter in cosmetics, confetti launched at celebrations and plastic pellet infill, used between the blades in turf fields to supply cushion and steadiness.
Those tiny plastics inevitably finally end up within the surroundings, making their manner into the air, water and soil, the place they may be able to be inhaled or ingested by way of people and different organisms.
California has proposed banning plastic glitter in non-public care merchandise. No different state has pursued glitter, then again some towns, comparable to Boca Raton, Florida, have limited plastic confetti. In 2023, the Ecu Union handed a ban on all nonbiodegradable plastic glitter in addition to microplastics deliberately added to merchandise.
Non-public care merchandise, specifically make-up, have added glitter in recent times. Then again, when that make-up is washed off, it regularly is going down drains and into wastewater, including to plastics within the surroundings.
Wealthy Fury/Invision/AP
Synthetic turf has additionally come beneath scrutiny. Even if turf is widespread for its low repairs, those synthetic fields shed microplastics.
Ecu regulators focused turf infill thru the similar legislation for glitter, and municipalities in Connecticut and Massachusetts are taking into consideration native bans.
Infill flies up from synthetic turf as a highschool football participant kicks the ball in 2022.
Isaac Wasserman for The Washington Publish by way of Getty Pictures
Rhode Island’s proposed legislation, which might ban all deliberately added microplastics by way of 2029, is large sufficient to incorporate glitter, turf and confetti.
Lowering secondary microplastics: Textiles and tires
Maximum microplastics don’t get started small; slightly, they wreck off from higher pieces. Two of the largest culprits of secondary microplastics are artificial clothes and car tires.
A find out about in 2019 estimated that textiles accounted for 35% of all microplastics coming into the sea – shed from polyester, nylon or acrylic clothes when washed. Microplastics can lift chemical compounds and different pollution, which is able to bioaccumulate up the meals chain.
As a way to seize the fibers prior to they’re launched, France would require filters in all new washing machines by way of 2029.
A scientist holds a pattern appearing microfibers captured right through a washer cycle.
Owen Humphreys/PA Pictures by way of Getty Pictures
A number of U.S. states, together with Oregon, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, are taking into consideration equivalent regulation. California got here shut in 2023, passing regulation to require microfiber filters for laundry machines, but it surely used to be in the long run vetoed because of issues about the price of including the filters. Even so, knowledge submitted in strengthen of the invoice confirmed that such filters may just minimize microplastic releases from laundry by way of just about 80%.
Some states, comparable to California and New York, are taking into consideration warnings on clothes made with artificial fibers that will alert customers to the dropping of microplastics.
Tires are every other extensive supply of microplastics. As they put on down, tires unencumber thousands and thousands of heaps of debris once a year, lots of which finally end up in rivers and oceans. Those debris come with 6PPD-quinone, a chemical connected to mass die-offs of salmon within the Pacific Northwest.
Artificial rubber in car tires shed debris into the surroundings because the tires put on down.
Wenson Wei/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
One means could be to revamp the product to incorporate more secure possible choices. California’s Division of Poisonous Components Regulate not too long ago added 6PPD-quinone to its precedence product checklist, requiring producers to give an explanation for how they are going to both redesign their product or take away it from the marketplace.
Regulating disposal
Microplastics can be handled on the disposal degree.
Disposable wipes, as an example, comprise plastic fibers however are nonetheless flushed down bathrooms, clogging pipes and liberating microplastics. States comparable to New York, California and Michigan have handed “no-flush” labeling regulations requiring transparent warnings on packaging, alerting customers to get rid of those wipes differently.
Building websites additionally give a contribution to native microplastic air pollution. Cities alongside the New Jersey shore have enacted ordinances that require developers to stop microplastics from coming into typhoon drains that may lift them to waterways and the sea. Such strategies come with the usage of saws and drills with vacuums to cut back the discharge of microplastics and cleansing worksites every day.
Oregon and Colorado have new manufacturer duty regulations that require producers that promote merchandise in plastic packaging to fund recycling methods. California calls for producers of expanded polystyrene plastic merchandise to make sure expanding ranges of recycling in their merchandise.
Statewide methods and disclosure regulations
Some states are experimenting with broader, statewide methods according to analysis.
California’s statewide microplastic technique, followed in 2022, is the primary of its type. It calls for standardized checking out for microplastics in consuming water and units out a multiyear highway map for decreasing air pollution from textiles, tires and different assets.
California has additionally begun treating microplastics themselves as a “chemical of concern.” That shifts disclosure and possibility overview duties to producers, slightly than leaving the load on customers or native governments.
Different states are pursuing statewide methods. Virginia, New Jersey and Illinois have regarded as expenses to observe microplastics in consuming water. A Minnesota invoice would find out about microplastics in meat and poultry, and the findings and suggestions may just affect long term client protection laws within the state.
State and native projects within the U.S. and in another country – be they bans, labels, disclosures or research – can lend a hand stay microplastics out of the environment and lay the root for long term large-scale law.
Federal ripple results
Those state-level projects are beginning to affect policymakers in Washington.
In June 2025, the U.S. Space handed the bipartisan WIPPES Act, modeled on state “no-flush” regulations, and despatched it to the Senate for attention.
Any other bipartisan invoice used to be offered in July 2025, the Microplastic Protection Act, which might direct the FDA to analyze microplastics’ human well being affects, specifically on youngsters and reproductive techniques.
Proposals to require microfiber filters in washing machines, first examined on the state point, also are being regarded as on the federal point.
This trend isn’t new. A decade in the past, state bans on wash-off beauty microbeads lead the way for the Microbead-Unfastened Waters Act of 2015, the one federal legislation so far that without delay bans one of those microplastic. That historical past suggests lately’s state and native movements may just once more catalyze broader nationwide reform.
Small steps with giant affect
Microplastics are a frightening problem: They arrive from many assets, are onerous to wash up as soon as launched, and pose dangers to our well being and the surroundings.
Whilst world treaties and sweeping federal regulation stay out of succeed in, native and state governments are appearing a trail ahead. Those microsolutions would possibly not get rid of microplastics, however they may be able to cut back air pollution in fast and measurable techniques, growing momentum for higher reforms.
