The Microplastics And PFAS Connection
By Cayla Cook and Eva Steinle-Darling
Microplastics, small plastic particles with sizes ranging from 5 millimeters to 1 nanometer with various morphologies such as microfibers, fragments, pellets (nurdles), or microbeads, have received increasing attention, including upcoming statewide monitoring in California.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are a group of unique chemically stable compounds and, as a result, have made them highly valuable across a wide range of industrial, commercial, and military uses. However, this feature concomitantly makes them recalcitrant and persistent in nature — thus coined “forever” chemicals (Lindstrom et al. 2011, Buck et al. 2011). Recent developments in toxicology, coupled with significant political pressure, have put PFAS on the fast-track for regulation in drinking water and wastewater. While co-occurrence is well-known for a variety of contaminants like triclosan and triclocarban, the connection between microplastics and PFAS has not been studied in much detail despite being linked together in multiple ways. Not only can some PFAS occur as microplastics such as polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) and polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE), it is also used as a coating on synthetic textiles and plastic components that then break down to fiber- or particle-based macro-, meso-, or microplastics. Moreover, non-PFAS microplastics can involve PFAS at certain stages in their production process, for example polyvinyl chloride (PVC).