and so much smaller, too, in terms of micro and nano plastics. april plastics shedding -- they 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 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 micro plastics. and we cannot forget the biosolids from wastewater treatment and agricultural fertilizer also contain micro plastics and when those biosolids are put onto lamps, they can run off into our streams and waterways, creating additional plastic challenges which is why i have introduced those act make this a high research area for the department. but we need to think better or bigger. we need to think about how to stop micro and nano plastics from getting into the water in the first place and how to filter the

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 to

accurate the highest accumulation is in our brains and we have a record of micro plastics and nano plasticsecting human fertility and plastics is an endocrine disrupter. are you familiar with the science? mr. zeldin: i enjoyed being able to meet with you and your team in your office where this is an issue of great interest and passion of yours. i would look forward to an opportunity to read what you are referencing so i can become intimately familiar with any detail that you are citing that i have not read before. >> i was hoping that you were going to do. i thought you would say i am going to go out and read these articles. mr. zeldin: i would look forward to continuing to read even further. >> there is an effort by the chemical industry, don't worry, we will melt everything down in big pots. they call it chemical recycling , it is basically thermal melting, but it has proved to only be usable in very limited, basically manufacturing waste as opposed to post-consumer plastics. they are trying to sell it as the absolute cure, don't worry, we can go from 8% recycling to a high percent. are y

plastic would be really helpful there. and so i think that that's the future. they're also looking at hydro gels as a way of removing nano and microplastics as a potential. but i think cleanup is comes secondary to really solving the problem upstream from that. >> so the src 2.0 act focus, hopefully you've read it and seen it focuses a lot on the upstream. so i don't disagree with you at all on that. so both of you are kind of saying biodegradability is important but less toxicity is equally important. ok, good, great, mr alba. what about you? >> thank you. and i appreciate the information about juneau and i would take any available opportunity to visit juno anytime i can reasonably do so. beautiful place. i just spent the last three days there and it's wonderful and they're very excited about this new foundation and leveraging. you know, we have a huge no, a research facility in juneau. we have a university of alaska fairbanks which has their college of fisheries and oceans, university of alaska southeast. so it's kind of becoming a big research hub on fisheries on oceans. and this will add to that uh which will now be