Worried about plastic pollution in your tap water? Try boiling in it, a new study suggests. Boiling tap water can destroy at least 80 percent of three of the most common plastic compounds that can …

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.

  • deranger@lemmy.world
    32·
    9 months ago

    You’re not supposed to drink the flocculated plastic particles. You still have to decant or filter the boiled water; this just makes it easier to remove the microplastics by increasing the particle size.

    • echutaa@programming.dev
      61·
      9 months ago

      Seems like a lot of work compared to just using an ro filter, but I also live in an area where you shouldn’t drink the tap because of the crap they put in it.

      • XTornado@lemmy.ml
        1·
        9 months ago

        the crap they put in it.

        As in actively put in??? Or as in industries or similar dumping stuff into the river or similar?

        • echutaa@programming.dev
          1·
          9 months ago

          Yea they intentionally add chloramines which have a range of health issues, but it kills the biohazards so they do it to prevent outbreaks of waterborne diseases.