senate subcommittees is 90 minutes.

[gavel smash] good afternoon. welcome, everyone. this joint hearing of the environment and public works subcommittees on chemical safety, waste management, environmental justice and regulatory oversight and fisheries, water and wildlife. on understanding the presence of microplastics in water will come to order. as one of our witnesses today, dr. sherri mason said normal humans looking at a sample of water. if there's visible plastic in it, they'll be turned off, but they don't realize it's actually the invisible plastics present that are the biggest concern. thank you for sharing that line and allowing me to steal it from you. those invisible plastics are why we're here today. like people shed skin cells, plastics shed particles of plastics.

these can be big microplastics which range from half a centimeter down to a micrometer or a micrometer. a micrometer being less than 1/70 the size of human hair or they can be as small as nanoplastics which are even smaller than a micrometer. not surprisingly, we're finding microplastics everywhere, on top of mountains, at the bottom of the sea, in the food we eat, in the air we breathe, in drops of rain and even drops of our own blood. microplastics have been found in our livers, our lungs and the breast milk we feed our babies. even when folks try to avoid using plastics products like paper cups and aluminum cans. now have plastic linings. this should set off public health alarm bells for everyone

because microplastics leach chemicals, chemicals like endocrine disruptors that affect the reproductive system and are a major suspect in the decline of male fertility worldwide. chemicals that lead to weight gain, chemicals that lead to insulin resistance, chemicals that cause cancer. congress has taken important first steps to address plastics in our water like the micro bead free waters act of 2015. based on the research of one of our witnesses, dr. mason. this legislation banned cosmetics with intentionally added plastic microbeads that did nothing for consumers but did pollute our waterways. since then, we've learned that the problem of plastic pollution is so much more extensive than microbeads and so much smaller too in terms of micro and nanoplastics. microplastics, shedding, shed into our water every time we use plastic water bottles, every time we wash clothing made from a whole series of products that we may not even think of as, as as plastics but are plastics, nylon, polyester, other synthetic materials.

every time it seems that water interacts with plastic. our water treatment systems filter out many harmful contaminants but the filters have plastic components that could be inadvertently polluting the water with microplastics. and we can't forget that biosolids from wastewater treatment and agricultural fertilizer also contain microplastics. and when those biosolids are put onto lands, they can run off into our streams and waterways, creating additional plastic challenges, which is why i've introduced the research for healthy soils act to make this a high priority research area for the department of agriculture. but we need to think better or we need to think bigger. we need to think about how to stop micro and nanoplastics from getting into the water in the first place and how to filter them out when they already exist. thanks to current research on

microplastics and micro fibers, including work led by one of our witnesses today, dr. brander from oregon state university, states are starting to act. legislation was recently introduced in my home state of oregon that would require all new washing machines sold in oregon to include a built in microfiber filtration system. state led efforts are important but microplastics don't stop at the state border. so we also need national attention. fortunately, we've been joined by a panel of experts today who can help us understand what those national solutions might look like. dr. susanne brander is an eco-toxicologist and associate professor at oregon state university whose research focuses on microplastics and how they affect behavior and growth in fish and other water organisms. she is also a coleader of the pacific northwest consortium on plastics. also joining us today is doctor sherri sam mason, associate research professor and director of sustainability at penn state

bear end in erie, pennsylvania. her research on freshwater microplastics has led to plastics legislation here in the united states as well as other places around the world. and we are joined by brent alspach. patch. patch? thank you. vice president and director of applied research at arcadis, where he oversees their water division's research on drinking water, recycled water, waste water and storm water. thank you all for taking the time to share your expertise with us. i will reserve the opportunity for senator mullen as ranking member to give his opening remarks when he was able to get here. i hear that he is on his way. he will also be followed by opening remarks from our colleagues on the fisheries

subcommittee. >> thank you, senator merkley. good afternoon, everybody. and thank you to my colleagues both sides of the aisle for participating in this joint hearing between our respective subcommittees by being the senate environment and public works subcomittee on fisheries, water and wildlife. today, we have the privilege of cochairing this hearing along with our republican colleagues. it's going to be a substantive but important discussion. you see, we're teaming up to examine the issue of microplastics, including nanoplastics, in our drinking water and in waste water. so, i want to just not brag too much but call attention to my involvement in the issue since before i even joined the senate. in fact, i was serving as california secretary of state in the year 2020 when i joined senator dan sullivan from alaska at a virtual event hosted by the massachusetts institute of technology focused on the dangers of plastic pollution. each of us sharing our work experience and legislative experience at that point.

and as senator sullivan so, eloquently articulated, then we knew that the issue truly can be an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation, especially as we support this emerging area of research. and while the study of microplastics is in fact still emerging, one thing we do know beyond a shadow of a doubt is where we can find microplastics , because the answer is everywhere. it's all around us. these tiny, sometimes microscopic shards and fragments of plastic, less than five millimeters in length have been found in the clouds above our skies, in the depths of the oceans, and literally everywhere in between. now, just last summer, here's another one, i'm not trying to brag too, too much, but i participated in the annual lake tahoe summit, the 27th annual

lake tahoe summit where the governors and senators from both california and nevada convene at the lake to talk about cooperation between our states and the federal government to protect this tremendous jewel, this tremendous natural resource. and i was reminded that even in a natural wonder like lake tahoe, given its high elevation, given its pristine clear blue water, surrounded by nothing but scenic mountaintops and trees, with all the multistate multijurisdictional environmental protections, even there, microplastics is a problem. so, it's no surprise if you can find them there, then you'll find them in everyday products like plastic water bottles with hundreds of thousands of bits of plastic per liter of water. these findings should alarm us,

folks. should alarm us into action. just how pervasive are microplastics in the water that we drink? well, i'm proud to say that in california, we're trying to lead the way in trying to answer the question as the first government in the world to set requirements for testing microplastics and drinking water. states trying to lead the way. and this is the model by the way that other states as well as the federal government can follow in the coming years. get we also know that microplastics are already so, -- so common that increasingly we found them in stomachs of sea animals, in our own food and water, and yes, even in human lungs and bloodstreams. so, i will continue to learn more and more about the presence of micro plastics on the planet. the question must also become

what are the potential impacts of microplastics on human health . and to explore just that i want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. i'm certainly looking forward to hearing more about the state of your research and how congress can help protect the health of not just our environment, but our constituents and the future generations. and with that, thank you again, senator merkley. if i can now hand it over to a ranking member of our subcomittee, my friend and colleague, senator lummis. senator lummis: thank you, chairman merkley. and thank you, chairman padilla. as you were talking, i had a recollection and a mental image. i got to fly over lake tahoe in a very small plane back in 1977 when i was working for a rodeo contractor in northern california. the plane was piloted by joe alexander, who was the world

champion bareback rider, bareback bronco rider in the world. and we flew over and we buzzed lake tahoe and it was unforgettable. unforgettable. you have such a beautiful state , and it's such a privilege for me to serve with you as ranking member on the fisheries water and wildlife subcomittee and -- subcommittee. and thank you as well, chairman merkley. we all come from the west beautiful states and this is an important topic to all of us . under the safe water, safe drinking water act, the epa set regulations for over 90 different contaminants in public water. and these supplies have such contaminants as arsenic, asbestos, lead, mercury and many other substantives that are proven to harm human health. the contaminants on this list did not appear overnight. generally, the process of adding contaminants to the national primary drinking water regulations is thorough, rigorous, and multifaceted. it is a years long process based on solid scientific data.

today's hearing focuses on the potential presence of microplastics in drinking water and wastewater. i'm glad we've convened a panel of academic witnesses to discuss this topic. the consensus on microplastics and their effect on human health is that there really is no consensus. so, we need to start diving into this and understanding it better as members of the u.s. senate. according to the american water works association, while we are aware of the existence of microplastics in the environment, their occurrence in drinking water sources is not well defined. additionally, the effectiveness of treatment processes in removing them is not well understood, certainly by me and perhaps by others and assessing the associated health effects is proven challenging. despite the large number of unknowns, there continues to be considerable public interest in this topic.

while water utilities have their hands full with numerous challenges including pfa's, lead contamination, infrastructure repair, and many others, i applaud the industry for continuing to further its research on microplastics. so, again, thanks to all our witnesses, really appreciate your being here, really appreciate the fact that i'm going to get to learn a lot from you. and i look forward to this conversation. mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you. >> thank you very much, senator lummis. and senator mullen has offered to enter his statement for the record. and is there any objection ? hearing none, so ordered. we're now going to turn to our experts to actually get some insights here, and we're going to start with dr. brander. dr. brander: thank you, chairman merkley and padilla and ranking members, senator lummis and mullen, for the opportunity to testify today on the potential

for microplastics and drinking and wastewater to have repercussions for environmental and human health. i'm an associate professor at oregon state university and have been conducting research on microplastics and plastic pollution for nearly a decade, and on endocrine disrupting chemicals for over a decade. the issue of plastic pollution is a great environmental challenge, as has been mentioned. it is also an expensive problem. estimated at about 13 billion annually. fragmentation of plastic products and waste into microplastics is of substantial concern to the nation's water treatment sector, where contamination is widely documented. microplastics are now broadly defined by california as a solid polymeric material to which chemical additives or other substances may have been added. these are particles having at least three dimensions, greater than one nanometer and less than five millimeters. formulations of plastics are estimated to use upwards of 13,000 chemicals and

microplastics are widely documented to harm aquatic and terrestrial wildlife. they can slow growth, alter behavior, and cause reproductive disruption. they also cause adverse effects in mammals. and particle presence is now confirmed in the human heart , placenta, and lung tissues, as well as in circulation in the bloodstream. microplastics in wastewater and in drinking water are, of course, originating from multiple sources. influent to treatment plants contain synthetic microfibre shed from our laundry breakdown of plastics from dishwashers and plastic detergent pods, washing of one synthetic garment is estimated to generate over 100,000 micro fibers and an average load produces upwards of 9 million, and dryers emit them, too, potentially on a larger scale. dishwashers can also generate thousands of microplastics per cycle. and a medium sized town could emit over 300 million microplastics on a daily basis

, according to a recent study. so, the burden of dealing with these has really shifted to waste water treatment plants and drinking plants. wastewater treatment plants tend to retain most of these particles in the sledge which is sterilized into biosolids. and as senator merkley mentioned, these are used as fertilizers and those particles can be washed back, and all of these discharges are unregulated. while drinking water in the u.s. does contain fewer microplastics in comparison to wastewater, the the u.s. does have among the highest prevalence of microfibre in its drinking water and the highest number of particles detected per liter currently. and results on studies in rodents, which are used as human health models, suggest the potential for impacts of this long term exposure to markers like reproductive and microbiome health. far less is known about the

occurrence and effects of tinier particles which were also, mentioned in the introductory remarks. these nanoplastics, tap water, like bottled water, was recently shown to contains high levels of nanoplastics. but the methods for detecting these smaller size fractions are expensive and limited currently. the smaller particles have 2he capability 2o 2ove 2round 2ithin the body following ingestion and they can also, potentially accumulate. bottled water, which contains higher levels of microplastics, is disproportionately consumed by marginalized communities as well. experts agree that source reduction of plastics is needed , but of course this is challenging, giving that given that these are deeply embedded as far as use goes in our daily lives, and that the shedding of microplastics is challenging to control. but this challenge must be addressed across multiple sectors for progress to be made. we have accumulating evidence that as these microplastics degrade into smaller sizes, they can elicit inflammation, cellular toxicity, and myocardial damage. a next step would be to take action to limit presence in our waterways are in our bodies. potential solutions include

requiring microfiber filters on washing machines, as has been a bill has been introduced in oregon and in california as well. also, catchments in rain gardens can significantly reduce plastic pollution from storm water runoff. our nation's waterways are intended to be protected by the clean water act, which in 1972 established a framework for regulating pollutant discharges. however, the cwa has not yet been used, of course, as you know, to limit the discharge of microplastics. given that microplastics and their precursors could be defined as originating from point sources such as pellets, discharge of microplastics from treatment plants, or the recent vinyl chloride spill. the cwa provides the most direct route for potential regulation. so, long term solutions are greatly needed, including better waste management management strategies, and a move towards

global, globally touted approaches for circularity. with that, thank you so, much -- thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today and i'm pleased to answer any questions that may come up. >> thank you very much, dr. brander. dr. mason? dr. mason: thank you, subcomittee, chairman merkley and padilla and ranking members, mullen, lummis, and other subcomittee committee members for the opportunity to speak at this hearing. my name is dr. sherri mason. i'm a chemist and currently the director of sustainability at the erie campus of penn state. when many think of plastic pollution as an issue, they think of mass collections of debris in the oceans. while oceans are certainly important, science has made it clear over the past decade that this is not an oceans only problem. it is a water problem. my research group was among the first to study plastic pollution and freshwater ecosystems. our study formed the basis of the science upon which the microbeads free water act of 2015 was based. years later, we would also, be -- also be the first research

lab to examine wastewater treatment plant effluent as well as tap water and bottled water. while our results were surprising, just last month we learned that bottled water has even higher concentrations of even smaller particles called nanoplastics. my work in this field of research started in the great lakes, the largest freshwater ecosystem on the planet, holding 90% of the united states freshwater supply and 20% of the world's freshwater supply. our economy and our country are exceedingly fortunate to have this freshwater resource right in our backyard. and yet, over the five years that i sailed and sampled all five of the great lakes, we established a hard and sad truth. as the water flows from one lake to another, the amount of plastic within that water increases. each great lake now harbors between one and 5 billion pieces of plastic each. each lake has that much.

97% of those micro of those plastics are what are classified as microplastics whose origins are larger macro plastic items. the dominant degradation pathway of plastics is mechanical, not chemical, nor biological. this makes plastics unique among other materials and is a primary driver for its ecological and human health impact. plastics are synthetic. they are man made. and as a consequence, they don't readily biodegrade, and so they linger in the natural environment. as they linger, they are baked by the sun and pummeled by wind, water, cars, and the like , causing them to break into ever smaller pieces. one macro plastic item can form millions of microplastics which break into billions of nanoplastics. particles so small they can easily move across the

gastrointestinal tract, be carried by the blood, end up in our livers, kidneys, brains, even crossing the placental boundary into embryos. there are about 13,000 different chemicals used during the manufacture of various plastic products. many of these are known to be carcinogens or endocrine disrupting chemicals, which means that they mimic hormones, the chemical messengers of the body. by affecting the endocrine system, these chemicals within plastics are linked to fertility issues, including decreased's perm -- decreased sperm counts, as well as being associated with obesity rates, autism, and other developmental issues. understanding the impacts of the plastic polymers themselves is the real knowledge gap currently. but initial studies have shown connections to inflammation, oxidative stress, alzheimer's, and other neurological diseases. while we don't know everything, what we do know is concerning. and water, the necessary elixir of life, is a primary means for

the movement of micro and nanoplastics into people. while wastewater treatment plants are fairly effective at removing plastics from wastewater, even those particles that are removed end up in the biosolids, which are frequently applied to farmland. this application allows plastic particles within the sludge to be re-released into nearby waterways as runoff or move through the soil into the groundwater. studies have found microplastics within groundwater. our study on tap water found an average of 5.5 pieces of microplastic per liter. should one think that bottled water is a solution to plastic within tap water, it's not. our study on bottled water found an average of 325 particles per liter, 58 times the quantity within tap water. and just last month, a new study found an average of 240,000

particles within nanoplastics particles within bottled water. nearly three orders of magnitude higher than our microplastic study. this study supported what our study found, which is we can't filter ourselves out of this problem. so, what can we do? the problem of plastic pollution is multifaceted and so, are the solutions. i think the epa plastic strategy as well as the break free from plastic pollution act provide good starting points for discussions. three solutions i want to highlight are source reduction and mitigation, extended corporate responsibility, and the creation of a national waste and recycling plan. thank you greatly for your time and attention. i look forward to answering your questions. sen. merkley: thank you very much for your testimony and now we'll turn to our third witness. welcome. mr. alspach: good afternoon, chairman padilla, chairman merkley, ranking member lummis, ranking member mullen, and members of the subcommittees.

thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on this important topic. my name is brent alspach and i'm a vice president and director of applied research at arcadis, a global engineering and consulting firm, where i oversee a program that's conducted approximately $30 million in drinking water, potable reuse, wastewater, and stormwater research. i also serve on the american water works association's technical and education council, which works to advance practices and technologies that produce the best quality drinking water for the public. it is in this capacity that i offer my testimony as a representative of the aww a community, and a subject matter expert on microplastics in drinking water. accordingly, i'm currently the principal investigator on two related projects funded by the water research foundation , developing strategic consumer messaging for micro plaque to ask on drinking water supplies project 5155. , and fate of microplastics in drinking water treatment plants, project 5185. microplastics is a category of emerging contaminant that

includes a wide variety of particulates with different physical characteristics which may originate from either primary or secondary sources. primary microplastics are produced as small particles, microbeads, or nurdles which serve as the raw material for manufacturing a wide variety of plastic products. whereas secondary microplastics are a product of the fragmentation of larger plastics like plastic bags or bottles. while generally characterized as measuring less than five millimeters in size, there is no formal scientific consensus on the definition of microplastics. studies have shown that microplastics are nearly ubiquitous in the environment, having been detected everywhere from the upper atmosphere to the deepest ocean trenches, including potable water sources and treated drinking water supplies. however, the science of characterizing occurrence in these supplies and understanding their impact while advancing quickly is still in its relative infancy, with many important questions remaining to be answered. the most important step toward advancing this understanding is the development and refinement of standardized analytical methods. along these lines, the california water resources

control board has approved two analytical methods which select water systems throughout the state will soon apply to evaluate real world samples. although these methods represent an important step in understanding occurrence, further research is needed to develop analytical techniques that are increasingly reliable, efficient, economical and able to detect plastic particulates at the nanometer scale. such advancements will facilitate the implementation of broader, more reliable occurrence, toxicity, and treat ability studies. the limitations of contemporary methods of microplastics analysis notwithstanding is still essential to understand occurrence and treat ability to the extent possible with the best science currently available. using these practices, a wide range of studies have demonstrated the ability of many drinking water treatment processes in common use across the country to achieve significant reduction of microplastics commensurate with other types of regulated particulates. however, if toxicity studies ultimately demonstrate that some subset of microplastics poses a

health risk via a drinking water vector, it will be important for water systems to adapt and optimize treatment as appropriate. the extent to which microplastics may contribute to adverse health outcomes is likewise the subject of ongoing research and likely various with -- varies with microplastics attributes. considerations may include the size, shape, and material composition of the ingested particulates, as well as the ingested quantity and the resonance time in the human body. relevant health and human health effect studies are difficult to conduct and such research has not yet established a clear indication that microplastics are toxic, a necessary precursor to any regulatory action under the safe drinking water act, which requires clear occurrence and health effects data. these statutory requirements help ensure that water systems can maintain high quality, affordable service in the context of their mandate to safeguard public health. accordingly, congressional support for research in these

areas would be welcomed by the drinking water sector. in parallel with this research, exploring and enhancing opportunities to divert the sources of microplastics from entering the nation's water supplies could be valuable preventative measures. thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony on this important topic. and i welcome any questions that you may have. additionally, awwa will be conducting an informational presentation. thank you. sen. merkley: well, thank you very much for your insights and testimony and now going to turn to questions. we're going to start with chair of environment and public works, senator carper. senator: thanks. thanks so much, mr. chairman. welcome, one and all. i'm going to ask the first question. i just want to give you really short answers. ok. and we'll start with you dr . brander, you mentioned -- i

think in your written testimony that the us has the highest prevalence microfibre in our drinking water compared to any other nation. that's pretty amazing. why is that, just very briefly? why is that? dr. brander: that's a really good question. it may in part be because we buy an incredible amount of clothing and a lot of this clothing is generated by companies that promote fast fashion. and so, there have been studies showing that our consumption of clothing has increased rapidly over the past 5 to 10 years and that that could be contributing. but i don't think at the exact cause -- senator: if we just buy less clothing, we could maybe make it, make a difference here. what do you think? i say that, tongue-in-cheek. next question. in addition to our retrofitting technologies in our washing machines to capture microplastics from our clothing. are there other innovations that can reduce the amount of micro fibers in our water systems? i like to find out what works do more of that if there are other countries, other places where they figured out how to do this

better and we could learn from them. what what can we learn from them? are any actions that congress should consider to reduce micro fiber shedding? thank you. quick sure. is that an additional question? senator: it's just a two-part question. quick sure. senator: we only get paid for one. [laughter] dr. brander: yes. fair enough. a nonprofit that i collaborate with in california is actually looking into solutions such as textiles that shed less as well as textiles that are produced from materials like kelp. so, producing textiles from sustainable materials that can also, capture carbon. so, those are solutions that are both being looked into currently that could potentially reduce microfiber shedding over the long term. senator carper: anybody else on this. oh, no, no, no, no. that's the second question. what can we learn from others with respect to this, this challenge? this problem i like again, i'd like to see if i know it works. do more of that.

anybody else do in another country maybe is doing a better job than we are? dr. mason: i don't know that there's other countries that are doing better. i think that there are people looking into it and patagonia is another company that's looking into it heavily as well. so, i think that there's some important science out there that's trying to understand kind of why the clothing sheds as much as it does, and are there things that we can do to mitigate those bio natural based polymers are another solution? although they still have the same chemicals that are used in them. and so, that's still a concern because as they degrade, they're still, they biodegrade but they're still toxic. senator carper: so, all right. thank you. is it, how do you pronounce your name? >> all spa senator. >> has your name ever been mispronounced? >> many times. i take whatever's close. senator carper all right. : question for you and maybe for our others.

um are there any areas of research noted in the draft strategy that the federal government should prioritize? and are there any further topics for future studies on micro nanoplastics not included in the draft strategy that the federal government maybe should consider? mr. alspach: yeah, i think probably the most important area that could require funding is the development of analytical methods, as i mentioned in my testimony because as several of the other speakers have mentioned as well, we really don't have very good understanding about the occurrence of nanoplastics in the environment in our water supplies. and until we understand that occurrence, we really can't conduct meaningful treat ability or toxicity studies to really understand in turn, how we should take action about microplastics. senator carper: ok. dr. mason, we're not gonna let you get out of here without a question. and i think in your testimony, you described that extended producer responsibility policies are one of the most powerful tools that policymakers have to decrease plastic pollution, including the resulting microplastic pollution. we see in our marine environment

question, we please expand on how extended producer responsibility policies can be an effective tool for reducing plastic pollution and subsequently reduce microplastic pollution. dr. mason: so, from my understanding of how they work, the companies are charged 2or -- for the plastic that they utilize, that they produce. they're charged less if they choose a polymer that's more easily recycled, like polyethylene or polypropylene versus something like polystyrene or polyvinyl fluoride that can't be recycled. and obviously, if they switch away from using plastics at all, they're not paying for it. that money then also, adds into -- also adds into infrastructure for the recycling system, which right now is being borne by the taxpayers, and hence is consistently underfunded. and this is one of the reasons why the recycling of plastics is so bad is because we need better

funding mechanisms to support the infrastructure around recycling. and so, this is a mechanism to provide that support for the recycling industry. and while at the same time, shifting the market to to fewer polymers because right now, i mean another issue we have with recycling of plastics is that there's thousands of different polymers that are on the marketplace. and so, to recycle them, you have to separate them each from each other. and that's, you can't do that through mechanical means you would need ft you need scanners, you need a different type of mechanism. and our current recycling infrastructure doesn't have that in place. so, one of the reasons why we have such a hard time recycling plastics is the separation of the different plastics from each other. so, if we can reduce the number of polymers that are on the marketplace, it enables better

recycling. and on top of that, you've got a funding mechanism to support that, that recycling initiative. and then you're using, you know, your, your roles right to, to get the outcome that you want from the system that is in place. and that's ultimately right, what we can do um as congress, what you guys can do as congress is you have systems in place, but you can use your leverage, use your different levers in order to produce the outcome that you want. and right now the recycling infrastructure is awful. so, extended, corporate responsibility is a good way to leverage to get the outcome that you're looking for. 00:37:34 dr. mason: thanks to each of you, mr karen, my wife studied at the university of tennessee. undergraduate fibers and textiles later worked for dupont for 30 some years in the same business. and then, but as a professor at the university of delaware, the

courses that relate to this as well, she's going to interest. i don't know how many people like tune in and look at the reruns of our hearings, but she's going to be tuning in tonight and sends her best. sen. merkley: thank you, senator carper. senator mullin? senator mullin: make me nervous and my wife is gonna watch my hearings. uh she would, she would scold me and correct me all the time. i love her though, deeply. so, for watching, i've been the best 26 years of my life, babe. um so, i had to put that out there. wow, i got myself in trouble. so, uh anyways, thank you guys for being here. uh i'm sorry, i came in a little late and i had an opening statement to thank you guys for taking the time, a time out of your busy schedule to inform congress. i think we can all say that, uh you know, the desirable outcome is not to have uh microplastics in our water, right? and, and that's what we would love to have. but at the same time when we're starting to look at these studies, we always say as, as you know, appear, all the science and science always

changes uh as a as a licensed operator to uh operate waste and uh and uh drinking water facilities. um i understand the challenges that our municipalities have to meet today's regulations which is very challenging. uh i uh as years ago, we had a company called mu environmental, where we did a lot of the water treatments, and it's constantly changing, and the different makeups of the water makes different challenges. you can literally go two miles down the road and have a complete different makeup of water that you have a complete different challenges to make them compliant with today. and, and as we're moving forward, looking at micro plastics, we have to be careful that we're not getting ahead of, as we would say, the science and do an un burden or burden. -- burden, i guess, these municipalities that are trying to meet today's regulations to chase something that we don't even know the conclusion of if , it's actually causing what harm or if it's causing harm at

all. so, i, i just caution all of us to understand that we have a lot of research to do and i think that's what you guys are doing, right. that's what everybody here, we, we're researching and we're here and we're searching for what we need to do, but we got to be cautious moving forward too by focusing so, much on microplastics, which we should not saying we shouldn't, we could distract what these municipalities are trying to do right now is make sure it's clean and safe and, and not, not causing cancers or what chemicals we are introducing aren't causing harmful reactions to the material that's already in the ground. like what we saw in flint, michigan. so, i just, i say all that because i just want to, i want to make sure as a committee that we're, we're moving with caution and we're going to actually pay attention to, to the science that's leading us down this path, which once again, i repeat myself. thank you guys for, for the research that every one of you guys are doing. i'm going to call you brent.

i won't mess up on that one. does that work? mr. alspach: best. thank you. sen. mullen: and you can call me mark wayne. so, that way we don't have to use formal titles there given the significant infrastructure investment needed to improve and maintain the compliance with current regulatory requirements, if water suppliers and regulators were to shift their attention to microplastics, what other safety priorities might be impacted? mr. alspach: i think as you , suggested, there are a number of priorities that utilities are currently contending with a couple that come to mind that are most pressing presently, pfas and lead. and both of those require significant amounts of attention and cost to utilities, which then is often passed on to their ratepayers, unless there are subsidies available to them and -- them. and diverting attention to something digital contaminant, whether it's microplastics or anything else would by necessity take some amount of energy, time, costs away from utilities and meeting the regulatory requirements for things like

that, that we know are toxic and we know need to be addressed in a very expedient manner. sen. mullen: and, and just hit on the lead exposure too. i understand every time we introduced most of the lead that we had in drinking water, they were already coated. and uh and we used to use a really natural water filtration system. when we started to have to get into more regulatory environment. we were cleaning up different type of water. we had to induce more chemicals and those chemicals then had a reaction to a lot of the piping we have in the ground today. and that's kind of my concerns we have today because it erodes the protection coding that was over some of the lead piping that was there and then it exposes us and we have now more issues. so, now we had, we try to solve one issue and we cause another problem. and so, as i say before, we've got to be really careful about the path that we're moving towards because it can, it can have a domino effect, especially

small rural areas where they just don't have the resources, which is what senator lomas and i, we represent rural areas, we face this all the time in our rural communities that they don't have the resources to just simply build a new water treatment plant that just doesn't exist. um so, once again, thank you guys for being here and with that, i'll you back. -- i'll yield back. sen. merkley: thank you very much, senator mullen. and i'm going to jump into a couple of questions that i hope to get quick answers to. but i realize that's, that's hard to do because things are complicated. but a lot of people listen to this hearing right now are going hunh. sen. mullen: all five? sen. merkley: six? [laughter] in our online folks as well. um, i think should, should i be getting water in a plastic bottle? and i see heads shaking. -- shaking no. but here's the thing, my understanding is our paper cups like the one senator loomis is drinking from at this moment are also lined with plastic.

my understanding is aluminum cans are lined with plastic. now over here, we have a blue, can you hold up your blue water bottle? i'm not sure about that. is it in fact the case that that aluminum cans and paper cups are lined with plastic, and do they put off fewer particles? or should we be thinking if just in terms of individual health, is there some container other than glass that, that doesn't have a plastic lining? thank you. dr. mason: are you, are you aiming this? it's just whoever jumps in a -- in first? a free-for-all? so, the coffee cup, because you typically are putting hot beverage into that is going to release more microplastics than if you are pouring a cold beverage into your container. which, probably if it's

stainless steel, doesn't have a lining. and so, most, most reusable metal water bottles these days, most of them do not have a lining. um, your, your soup at home usually has a lining. if you have orange juice, like i grew up on canned orange juice. yeah, i remember it tasted like metal because it wasn't lined with plastic. you know? but i think -- so, you have different extremes for sure. and i think there is more science that could be known on that. um, but preferring certain metals, certain containers over others, i think would be better , and i see you -- sen. merkley: i don't want to extend the time too much. i only have five minutes. so, i'll just take your answer. that's, that's helpful. i heard basically stainless steel may be the way to go. i'll follow through the record. i'll follow up some other questions in class because i'd like to know if the amount of particles that comes from a paper cup lined with plastic or an aluminum can is different than those coming from a water

bottle and so, forth what would have. but that's for the record. i want to turn to the human health side of this. and um in your testimony, dr mason, you referred to my, did i hear you say myocardial -- dr. brander, myocardial damage? that is heart damage, i assume. and um and then also, in testimony about the impact on sperm, on autism, on obesity and alzheimer's. are these simply things that we suspect, are we able to have a scientific process now that has really kind of started to really give us insight on how much these particles are contributing to challenges of human health. so, just like we've done with other contaminants over many decades, we've begun using -- human health. dr. brander: so, just like we've done with other contaminants over many decades, we've begun using rodents as a model for human health.

-- human health for the study of micro and nanoplastics. and recent studies are pointing to issues like cardiac toxicity, the potential for fibrosis, for example, in blood vessels created by the presence of these particles. in addition to those issues, there is also the potential for impact on the microbiome. that's been highlighted by a few studies. a study that we did at oregon state that was published in 2023 , we dosed drinking water with a low level of nanoplastics and mice were exposed to this drinking water for 24 hours. and just after that 24 hour period, we saw a significant difference in the diversity of bacteria in the gut of the exposed mice. so, you can imagine what that might mean over a lifetime of exposure. so, those are those are findings that have been published by my group and others. so, for those of us who don't follow all the health issues, microbiome.

-- sen. merkley: so, for those of us who don't follow all the health issues, microbiome. we are talking about bacterial growth in your intestines, i assume. and you're saying just in 24 hours, a low dose, you said not some high dose. and so, tell me how the mention of impact on human reproduction on counts. we know counts have dropped enormously for men. well, obviously for men, but around the world, are we, are we confident of this link between plastics? and is it the plastic themselves , or is it other chemicals that have been put into the plastic for -- i don't know -- hardness, brittleness, flexibility, color and so, forth. dr. brander: really good question because in some ways, those are two separate issues and really being exposed to a plastic particle is a multiple stressor because you're being , exposed to the chemicals potentially that are associated with the plastic but also, the particle itself. and so, a lot of the chemicals that are used in plastic, the 13 to 16,000 at this point , estimated, are endocrine

disruptors and directly interact with hormone receptors and that is shown to contribute to decreased production and decreased fertility. the plastic particles themselves , as dr. mason was saying earlier, they can cause oxidative damage, they can cause the production of reaction oxygen species. and i realize that's a lot of terminology, but long story short, that can cause cellular damage and then tissue level damage if it gets bad enough. and so, those processes can also contribute to effects on reproduction microbiome, other other important end points. ,sen. merkley: thank you. thank you very much. senator lummis? senator lummis: thank you very much, mr. chairman. my daughter is a little obsessive about the containers that she uses in her house for my grandchildren and i thought she was being a little obsessive compulsive and now i know she's not, this is a real thing, a, a real concern.

um so, i want to try and bring it down to the water treatment level. um help me understand how we can do a cost benefit analysis that maybe a small water treatment plant in a community in wyoming can get their head around and use to help them address this issue. mr. alspach: you ask a very important question, senator and i firmly believe as i've indicated in my testimony that we just need more research to be able to even answer that question. i don't believe at this point that utility in wyoming could do a meaningful cost benefit analysis without much more information that informs what that analysis would ultimately tell them. sen. lummis: ok. so, are groups like yours thinking about that? getting ready to help maybe a small water treatment plant and analyze the cost and the benefits? mr. alspach: certainly the cost of treating for microplastics is something we could quantify whether it's to an extent that

-- quantify. whether it's to an extent that would be meaningful for health production. again, that's an open question, but they are particulates and we do have a very good understanding about how particulates for the most part are removed. although microplastics have some different properties than other particulates, but we could quantify that for any utility and give some indication of cost. but again, that said there may be other particulates in the nanoscale that we cannot yet detect and don't have any understanding really about how efficacious treatment processes are for removing those particulates. sen. lummis: based on what you know now about this subject, how would you tackle it from a policy point of view? what would you do first that would have the biggest bang for the buck and then scale it down from there? mr. alspach: yeah, that's also an excellent question. and i guess i would give some credit to the state of california, which i believe is doing a very good job of approaching this topic. i believe when the state passed its bill to give the regulators a mandate to look at this process, they didn't go in with

a foregone conclusion that something should be done about microplastics. but with an open mind that it's an important question that needs to be addressed. and so, with that in mind, they went and developed a definition of microplastics, followed by methods which again, which have their own shortcomings, but nevertheless, are standardized to the best of our ability at this point in time. and once those methods in place, they're going to look at source waters to try to understand the occurrence. and with that hopefully more health effects studies will be done in parallel. and then ultimately, when their monitoring program has run its course, 2e 2ope 2here 2ill 2e enough information between the occurrence data, the treat ability data, and the toxicity data to understand whether or not microplastics need to be looked at in a drinking water treatment context. sen. lummis: ok. i see the gentle women on the panel, your co panel is nodding. could you address the same issue? dr. mason: i think he makes a valid point. i think real solutions to this problem are much more upstream than the wastewater treatment or the water or wastewater treatments. i mean, that's not where you tackle it. you don't tackle this problem when you're dealing with

something that's nano size, you deal with it when you're talking about something that's big. right? and so that's why i point to source reduction and extended corporate responsibility and a waste and recycling plan there. they are -- recycling plan. there you are talking about macro items that are easy to gather and quantify and obtain and you're reducing what's ending up in the water, the occurrence. and you're not looking at the water treatment facilities telling them they need to clean it up, but i can keep, you know, doing whatever it is. i want to go to, you know, a coffee shop every morning and getting my, my latte and my plastic cup and then throwing it on the side of the road. that's -- the problem is that, right? the problem is that when it's at the macro level and that's when you really solve this, you always, when you're looking at a problem, you look as far upstream for a solution as you can. that's where the real solutions are.

sen. lummis: dr brander, would you like to weigh in? dr. brander: sure. and i would say i completely agree with the comments of both of the other panelists. source reduction is absolutely what we need to aim for. and that's why the problem of plastic pollution is being discussed at a global level right now at the un. and that's where the focus is focusing on reducing the number of polymers that are being produced, simplifying chemical simplification and reducing what we're putting out there. because once we have these nano size particles in the environment, you can't go out there with a vacuum cleaner and , you know, remove them from the environment, right? and so, we really need to start at a larger scale, at the macro scale, to get at this problem. dr. brander: this glass is made out of uh a natural trona. there are only two places in the united states that have natural trona mines. they are wyoming and california.

and, uh, so, for my chair and his ranking member, uh let's all use more glass from wyoming and california. mr. chairman, i yield back. sen. merkley: thank you very much, senator lewis and from wyoming, california, we'll make that transition. senator padilla. senator padilla: thank you, mr chair. i want to just acknowledge some of the questions and some of the work that senator lois and i are doing together, not just on addressing, we, we talked about clean water for safe water, but also water affordability and how a lot of rural communities or smaller agencies are able to finance the upgrade of infrastructure to address some of these issues. but since you invoked the name of my state, i'm proud to represent, let me brag a little bit more on what we're doing in california. proud to represent the state that tries to lead the nation when it comes to environmental policy.

as mr. alspach ken will attest. plastic is certainly no exception. in california community, plastics are pervasive with single use items like shopping bags acting like tumbleweeds when you find them in beaches and in parks and frankly just regular neighborhoods. that's why in 2014, the state of california took a step when it passed my first attempt at a statewide plastic bag ban. but since then, california has continued to lead on landmark plastic legislation like the current sb 54 which shifts plastic pollution responsibility from consumers to producers and bans styrofoam in cities like san diego and los angeles. now, california continues to pave 2he way in plastic monitoring. in 2022 you've been discussing this, the ocean protection council released a first statewide monitoring program to manage microplastics.

the roadmap includes setting standards for plastic levels in drinking water and testing for these compounds and certified labs across the state. i know our witnesses are very well aware of the work, but i share that with my colleagues and for the record to tee up the following questions. number one, dr brander, given your previous work with the opc, what lessons can other states and the federal government learn from this pioneering monitoring program? dr. brander: absolutely. thank you for the question, senator. and i will mention that oregon has also enacted an extended producer responsibility bill and has banned styrofoam. i think that begins next year. sen. padilla: so, better than california's? [laughter] dr. brander: will get back to california. from the opc experience, really i think what was critical there was that both scientists and stakeholders were involved from the beginning and that is really where we need to begin at every, in every state, every discussion

of this huge challenge. in terms of involving scientists and stakeholders early on, i think that helps with the issue of people feeling like scientists are giving directives when we don't necessarily have the responsibility or the challenges of regulating a new ntaminant on the ground. so, i think that was really important. and then the integration of all of the agencies across the state was incredibly impressive working with the water board, which is of course, california's epa the their southern california coastal water research project. so, many important agencies that were able to sort of cut down on the barriers and any silos that existed and able to work across work across any barriers that previously existed. so, i think that was incredibly important as well. and i think it is a wonderful example to other states, and the

challenge other states, i think is the availability of resources , being able to compile enough resources to tackle such a giant challenge. sen. padilla: well, we certainly commend the state of oregon for stepping up and encouraging others to do as well. dr. mason, can you expand on the challenges that labs face in monitoring plastics in water, especially at scale? dr. mason: yeah, i mean, i think brent did a great job of kind of mentioning this earlier. but i mean, when you're with plastics, the the the techniques that exist currently are very time and people intensive. as we go to smaller particles, which are a bigger concern when it comes to human health impact, that adds on to it an additional layer with regard to the analytical technique. so, the study that came out of columbia and rutgers university on bottled water was developing a new raman spectroscopy technique that allowed them to

analyze nanoplastics and not just to see that there was a particle there, but to say that yes, it is plastic and this is the type of plastic that it is , and that was critical and we haven't had that technique until january of 2024, but that is one technique and it's really expensive. so, you have the analytical abilities to analyze first particular plastics and identify them. and that's a huge expense on top of the fact that right now we don't have an automated way to go about pulling microplastics out of water. so, it's really human intensive, time intensive and expensive. sen. padilla: thank you. and i know my time is up just one follow up question for the californian on the panel. and just briefly, mr. alspach, can you tell the committee a little bit more about the two methods that the california state water board has approved? mr. alspach: sure. so, the two methods are infrared spectroscopy and a raman spectroscopy method. and the major difference between

those two in terms of the practical application is the resolution, which is 50 microns for infrared and 20 microns for the ramen. and that's important because the smaller you can go with your resolution, the better you're able to detect those nanoplastics which are critical for our understanding about this issue in a more comprehensive way. sen. padilla: thank you very much. thank you. sen. merkley: thank you and thank you for california's work on this issue. and let's turn to another ocean state of rhode island. senator whitehouse? senator whitehouse: thank you. thank you very much senator , merkley. thank you to all the witnesses. this has been a very helpful and productive hearing and i always appreciate it when a bipartisan panel can produce so much consensus and agreement on a particular issue. so, i thank you for all the work that has led to that being the case today, particularly you, chairman merkley. the university of rhode island has done a study recently looking at the top five centimeters of sediment in

narragansett bay, which is our main a resource and geographic feature. um and we are, we are loaded with uh more than 16 trillion pieces of microplastic, which if we could sort it all out from the sediments around, it would be 1000 tons. we also, try to grow in that -- we also try to grow quahogs in that sediment, and catch fish that feed off of that sediment , and so forth. so, um there's a pretty distinct likelihood of transit, particularly of nanoparticles up through the food chain.

so, this has a real rhode island resonance to it. one of the things that um i've been working on is trying to keep tabs with the u.s. effort in the u.n. negotiations that were discussed earlier, and i'm interested in hearing your recommendations to the us -- u.s. negotiators. assuming that the senate schedule allows, i'll be up to ottawa for the next meeting. then there's the our oceans conference coming up in greece, which will, i'm sure, have a fairly significant piece on this. i remember when president trump was all excited about getting plastics out of the ocean and mad at china for dumping it all and all of that. but every time you actually read a story, the story was all the other nations of the world complaining that the u.s. was

the laggard, that we were the anchor that they had to drag that of all the countries in the world. we were the least productive, helpful, and constructive in those international negotiations. so, that wasn't so great. what would you give -- what -- what message would you like me to convey to the negotiators when i go and harass them more about what the key points are that you would judge as being success points or failure points in those negotiations? doctor brander, let me start with you. dr. brander: sure. thank you, senator white house , for the question. sen. whitehouse: let me just interrupt and take it as a given that what dr. mason said is -- that bigger is better. you want to get out of the system before it's become nano size, but go on around that. dr. brander: absolutely correct. and i am a member of the scientist coalition which is a group of international scientists that is advising the

delegates to -- sen. whitehouse: all of them? dr. brander: the negotiations. sen. whitehouse: you're involved. you're advising the entire delegate pool, not just the us delegation. dr. brander: that's correct. sen. whitehouse: thank you for that. dr. brander: yes. sure. and in terms of the main, the main critical issues, really chemical simplification. so, reducing the enormous amount of chemicals that are used in the manufacture of plastics. and i think i've already quoted the 13 to 16,000 number. that's really one of the biggest problems that we need to tackle . and simplifying the number of chemicals that are used will make circularity, which is one of the biggest goals of these negotiations more feasible , because right now, given the number of chemicals that are contained in each of those plastics. sen. whitehouse: it's highly improbable. dr. brander: that's right. and then the new cocktails that are created from recycling them is a huge challenge. there was a recent paper published that estimated health care costs from exposure to those plastics associated

chemicals in the u.s. is about 249 billion annually. so, not a small, not a small number. so, that i would say is one of the biggest challenges as well -- challenges as well as , potentially banning polymers that are particularly problematic, like pvc and polystyrene. so, chemical simplification, polymer simplification, a better transparency in terms of corporations making data available on the composition of their products. and then, another huge challenge, for instance, a registry that anybody could go a registry, an international registry has been proposed. additionally, there's a huge environmental justice issue here and although these practices have been reduced, plastics are still being shipped to countries that don't have the waste management abilities to deal with them. and so, that is another big, the environmental justice, human rights issue is a huge overriding issue.

and i think what the feeling is on the perspective from the u.s. is that there is a lot of support for fossil fuel companies that are aiming to shift their business from producing fuels to producing plastics. right? we know natural gas and, and so, that i think is, is one of the biggest challenges in the u.s. is that the perception that we are supporting this shift in business strategy of fossil fuel companies to producing more single use plastics. sen. whitehouse: yeah. well, the chairman is familiar with my observation about the fossil fuel industry, that they have essentially two business strategies. one is to produce fossil fuel , and the other is to control violating the laws of economics that would otherwise require them to put the price of their pollution into their product. milton friedman is scowling down at them. chairman, i've gone over my time

already. if you wanted to allow an answer or if you wanted to wait for a second round. >> i do have some more questions and i suspect you might as well. >> i just support what she said. >> she covered? >> she covered it. >> i'm not as familiar with this as dr. banner is, i appreciate your comments. >> one last thing which is that unilever is quite a big company that we've worked with for a long time and they have come up with a proposal that kicks in this coming year to remove from the ecosystem a pound of plastic for every pound of plastic that goes out into the world, which among other things creates a market for that plastic to go to the places where this stuff is

piling up so that the knee-high lines of plastic along shores, you have to push her boat out through floating cease of plastic to get out to clearwater. suddenly it makes a lot more sense to clear that up, even if it is not being properly and fully recycled, at least it is out of those peoples' experience and to put money behind that to be able to buy that and to make good on your pledge seems like sort of the corporate frontline on this, and i hope american companies take the lead, follow and match that. . >> i was thinking a couple years ago when the potomac river flowed over the walking path south of the monument, the u.s. marines monument, and so i noticed people out along the trail with these little pliers

that they were picking up, and i got down and looked and in any square foot you could see 100 or 200 little pieces of plastic, indicating to me how much plastic there was in the potomac river as it flushed out to sea. just a massive amount. in this with the visible version of the world. and then i was also thinking back when i was developing affordable housing and they call for copper pipe, and the contractor suddenly brought in plastic pipe and they said it is not suspect that way, it is specced for copper. instead i was concerned about whether plastic pipe and hold up and they brought in a demonstration, they took a torch, showed it didn't melt and it had all been cleared, it was hugely beneficial for human health. and now i'm going in, maybe not.

you mentioned pvc and there is a slightly different version used for water supply pipes, but our water supply pipes made of plastic a good idea, if either of you have insight on that? >> you're going to put me in the hot seat, thanks. the short answer, no, not a good idea. beyond plastic has a really nice article on this topic, but to be honest, i'm not sure it is the first thing i would tackle with regard to this issue. but it is a concern, and it is a legitimate concern, and as pipes are being replaced because of the issues around leaves, it would be preferable to replace them with copper over pvc or

something similar. >> it seems there is just a huge amount of research that needs to be done here. different scenarios, different types of plastic are showing different amounts. different types of containers with different amounts. the type of plastic is different. the ingredients that have been added to plastic formulation for other qualities are different. for us to try to get a handle on the underlying question raised by my colleague from wyoming of where you get the most results, if you will. his nih fully endeared in terms of investing in our health understanding, our health research? you mentioned mouse models in a controlled setting where you can really measure the impact much more. you mentioned gut health being

major, but are some of the other impacts like obesity, alzheimer's, heart disease, autism, sperm counts, are we starting to have studies of mice that start to give us kind of a real, your understanding of the health impacts? >> i will say that the national institutes of health did issue a statement about the radio saying that more resources were going to be devoted to better understanding the impacts of micro plastics. that being said, most of the research that has been done on mammalian models, rodents, mice and rats so far has been done either in asia or europe because there is more funding in those parts of the world for studies on human health. so it is still, i would say in the u.s., studies using rodent models are still in their infancy, that we've really just begun in the u.s. on answering some of those questions, but we

do have data from other parts of the world suggesting reproductive microbiota digestive effects and cardiovascular effects. >> i think that is extremely important. otherwise any given observation, there are so many influences. so we need that laboratory setting to gain understanding. of course, that's why we have a national institute of health, to help investing in significant human health issues, and this is an area that is really in the beginning phase of understanding that there is a big connection here to be explored. so we are closing in on the end of a vote, but i really appreciate all three of you raising the issues. we have staff for senator sullivan?

how far out? and how much time do i have with him? i will see if i can stall a little longer. can't miss the vote. it's not really stalling because there is so much to be explored here. you mentioned developing systems for measuring the amount of micro and nano plastics, and that seems critical to our understanding of how much concern that is to us. is it just in the last couple years or will we have the tools to start to understand this shedding process and the amount that is getting into our human bodies? >> i really think that it is just over the past couple of years that we started to better understand human exposure and human occurrence and in part that is because that technology

to measure nano plastics are slowly coming online. a fancy way of saying you have paralyzing a sample and measuring the mass of particles that might be in their. so yes, it is a new area of study and i think we are also just starting to understand how easily those particles befriend locate and move within our bodies as well. >> should be quit putting plastic pacifiers in babies mouth? >> probably. >> senator sullivan has worked really hard on environmental ocean issues. as another ocean state senator, you see a dominance of ocean state senators raising issues and concerns here. welcome, and we will turn it over to you. i may have to have you close up if i have to run to vote. >> thank you for holding this open, really important hearing.

i know that senator padilla was in you, he and i have been working on this issue before he even was a senator in a bipartisan way. so i want to thank the panelists. so for those watching, we had a big announcement in alaska last week, hopefully you heard about it, so in our safe our seas 2.0 legislation, legislation that in number of us got behind senator whitehouse and i were the leads on that, the most comprehensive ocean cleanup legislation ever, one of the things is a marine debris foundation. the marine debris foundation is a congressionally chartered foundation that focuses on ocean cleanup, plastics, other marine debris. last week i had the great pleasure of announcing that the

marine debris foundation would be headquartered in juneau, alaska in collaboration with our universities there, so this would be a public-private partnership, can accept private dollars. there's a lot of interest in this in the private sector. so we want to make sure you guys all get a chance to come out as this foundation get bigger, more prominent on the issues we are all talking about. ocean plastics and what we can do to keep our oceans clean. this is a global challenge, i like to say, but also a solvable one because we know that the estimates are anywhere from 60-70% of all the ocean debris in the oceans, and the world come from a number of rivers, 10

or more in asia and africa. let me ask each of you, there's this idea of willie band plastics -- will we ban plastics? this marine debris foundation, one of the elements in the law is will have a genius prize that focuses on public-private university innovations in terms of technologies that can dramatically impact keeping our oceans clean. one of the ideas i've always been pressing for is this idea that you have a plastic follow, somehow it gets in the ocean, you don't want it to be, but it is. it has water, it is how people drink clean water. that bottle right now, they don't fully biodegrade. that's why we have micro plastics in the water.

but i know there's chemists in america who are working on the potential of the plastic water bottle to fully biodegrade. that would be a huge innovation. it wouldn't be coming from the government but that is something that this marine debris foundation now in alaska with its mandate of many things, but one of which is the genius prize, would be something to undertake. so let me ask all of you, what do you see, and since the chairman left, i can ask questions as long as i want, so this is kind of nice. there's no one else waiting for me. what do you guys see as the technological advancements in innovations that can be leveraged to either to check micro plastics, or just get rid of them when they are in the ocean?

i will just ask each of you that really important question. you are all top professors, fly researchers. this is the key. a lot of times we in the senate, the government is going to do this or that. my view is this challenge, which is solvable, it is going to be through private sector innovations, and this new marine debris foundation based in alaska is going to help encourage that. so why don't we start with you. >> sure. >> have you guys heard of the new marine debris foundation in juneau, alaska? you've got to come out and visit it. it is exciting. >> really exciting that that foundation has been created, and i agree that private-sector solutions are needed, but i think that needs to happen under an umbrella of some regulation

that allows for things to happen at an equitable level that at a similar speed nationwide, rather than having state-by-state or region by region. and in terms of the development of a plastic bottle that could fully degrade -- >> for any other technological innovation that if you had a magic wand, you think could be really important. because that is one idea i've been pushing, but we want other ideas. what are the other ideas? this foundation is going to encourage all of this thinking. so three of the top minds on this, what is your magic wand moment in terms of a technological innovation negatively helpful? >> i think if there was a technological innovation that can enter advance chemical simplification in some of these plastic products that were being made, that would greatly reduce

the number of toxic compounds that are being released into the environment that we are being exposed to. currently, we thing relying on so many different combinations of chemicals that even if something is fully biodegrade, that doesn't mean it is not releasing those toxic compounds into the environment, and so really the toxicity of the polymers and the products that are being used, the chemicals being used to produce those products needs to be tackled first, before we aim at making things biodegrade faster or biodegrade completely. >> good, that is a great answer. about you? >> i concur with what you said which is probably no surprise, we spin on the same page this whole day. >> think big here, this is the moment right here. any big innovation, even if it is way out there, that you think if somebody figured it out, would have a giant impact.

>> i think the problem needs to be, i'm not criticizing you, i'm just stating the earlier i mentioned that the solution to this is before you get to the oceans. in other freshwater systems, by the way, because this isn't just an oceans problem. it is before you're dealing with micro plastics and nano plastics. so really solving at almost the letter before later problem is the real innovation that needs to happen with the focus on the biggest piece of the market is packaging, and so thinking about alternatives to those packagings. i think there are some alternative second-generation polymers developed and anything that is encouraging. but to the point, the chemical that are used in those are still an issue, and so those chemicals

need to change. i think those are especially exciting for something like cars or refrigerators, things were the use of plastics, cars are much more fuel-efficient because of the plastics that have been used in them, so it is not a place, you're not going to just eliminate the plastics. but coming up with a biodegradable, non-toxic plastic would be really helpful there. so i think that is the future. they are looking also at hydrogel as a way of moving nano and micro plastic as a potential, but i think cleanup comes secondary to really solving the problem. >> so the save our seas 2.0 act, hopefully you've read it or seen it, focuses a lot on the upstream, so i don't disagree with you at all. the both of you are saying biodegrade ability is important, but less toxicity is equally

important. good. what about you? >> i appreciate the information and i will take any available opportunity to visit alaska anytime i can reasonably do so. >> beautiful place, i just spent the last three days there and it is wonderful and they are very excited about this new foundation. we have a huge noaa research facility, we have the university of alaska fairbanks which as the college of fisheries and oceans, university of alaska southeast. it's kind of becoming a big research hub on fisheries, on oceans, and this will add to that. which will now be on ocean debris. everybody here is invited. come over to alaska, we would love to have you.

> a couple points. first, with respect to biodegradation other water bottle, i believe technology can do that and probably already exists in a number of facets but the problem is not the technology, is the scalability of that technology for industrial processes. i believe the private sector could do that as long as there are economics markets to make their incentive to do so. >> but don't you think if you are the company and maybe it has already happened, but if you are the company that has cracked the code on less toxicity in full biodegradability, i think that would be very good for the environment but the company is going to probably profit, which as i've said, we are a capitalist society and anything that is a good innovation, better spine with me. that is a win-win, right? help the environment, maybe help build a company, the workers benefit, shareholders benefit.

seems to me it could be potentially a very lucrative place to actually be successful not just for the environment, but for the economy. >> i agree. then you make it scalable so that it is. but in terms of my wish list for technology, i certainly appreciate that question a lot. we've been talking a lot about nano plastics and the lack of methods to detect nano plastics and there's detection, and then there's making the method economical and reliable and efficient and things that make it usable for us in the environment and in water supplies. we talk a little bit about the evolution of sensor technology and how if we were able to quickly, and i'll use this word colloquially, star trek-type technology to scan a water sample or scan the air or soil sample and detect the nano plastics present, that would

give us -- >> does that technology exist right now? >> to the extent that i've described it, no, but this is where and going. when i've had conversations with people in my field they would say we are so far away from that it is not feasible. but we tend to think as a society and very myopic terms about what is possible and what is not. and if you asked someone in 1875 if we would put a man on the moon, they would've said there is no way that is ever going to happen and yet we did it. i think we shouldn't limit ourselves based on the knowledge of what is possible today and what might be possible tomorrow and i feel like one way to accomplish that is to encourage clearing collaboration among researchers in industry because there could be limitations on a method to detect nineveh plastics that an industry that is not even thinking about nano plastics might have a solution for and i need to do is connect those dots, get those people talking to each other and they might find they have a mutual

solution to solve the problem. it's more of that occurs, we may solve that problem even before i retire as opposed to when my daughter retires. >> what we are trying to do in alaska, particularly in juneau on this issue is this kind of cross disciplinary collaboration. we had the institutions right now between noaa, our research universities and this new foundation, congressionally chartered marine debris foundation. with our genius prize, the idea is to also do exactly that. to encourage people to press the limits of what they think is feasible from a technological standpoint and bring that period much sooner, to your point. 1875, getting to the moon. 100 years, less than 100 years

from that date, pretty remarkable. great. any other thoughts on the technological side before i gather out for my witnesses? it is a really important component and you guys answer the question fully well. i want to close by thanking our witnesses for appearing today, sharing their knowledge on micro plastics. i would also like to thank senators merkley and padilla for being the chairs of this joint hearing, which is important on this important topic. before we adjourn i ask unanimous content -- consent to submit for the record a variety of materials that include letters from stakeholders and other materials that relate to today's hearing. additionally, senators will be allowed to submit written questions for the record to all of you through the close of business on tuesday, march 12. we will compile these questions

for the record and send them to our witnesses and we will respectfully ask all of you to try to reply to those no later than march 26, tuesday. and with that, again i want to thank the witnesses. we have a really good crowd here, shows you the importance of this very important topic, and i think we made some good progress today. with that, the hearing is adjourned.

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