Moore

How do we assess progress removing microplastics from drinking water?

Microplastic pollution has infiltrated every part of the environment, with potentially important effects on human and environmental health. However, tracking microplastics requires complex data sets, and state agencies must develop innovative solutions to the incompatibilities between existing data portals and usable microplastic datasets.

In California, state agencies must develop innovative solutions to fulfill the legislative requirements of SB 1422 and SB 1263, which require testing for microplastics in the state’s drinking water and the disclosure of test results to the public. The ideal solution includes a solid foundation for microplastic reporting that encompasses visualization tools, intuitive user interfaces, and best practices for data reporting and documentation.

The Possibility Lab and California 100 have partnered with the Moore Institute for Plastic Pollution Research, the State Water Resources Control Board, and San Francisco Estuary Institute to help make California the first government in the world to monitor for microplastics in drinking water. Open-source software will allow all data input and analysis to be transparent to the public, democratizing water quality monitoring while increasing civic and public engagement.

This will enable California to take the lead in microplastics monitoring, as well as in the development of open-source government software in the nation and throughout the world. In the long term, we hope that the modern interface and visualization tools we will create can enable diverse communities to use and interpret the data and work together towards addressing this emerging contaminant.

This project was made possible with funding from California 100.