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microplastics
Trump's EPA Wants to Count Microplastics While Corporations Keep Dumping Them
Committing $144 million to study microplastics while subsidizing fossil fuels by nearly $31 billion a year is like trying to clean up an oil spill with a spoon while the tanker is still spewing.
Apr 14, 2026
At a time when the science is clear, and action is overdue, the Trump administration’s STOMP initiative—aimed at measuring and removing microplastics from the human body—is a convenient distraction that delays real action. We do not need more studies to understand microplastics in our bodies. We need policies that prevent them from getting there in the first place.
For years, scientists have warned that we are breathing, eating, and drinking plastic. Microplastics—which contain more than 4,200 chemicals known to be hazardous to human health—are in our blood, lungs, and unborn babies.
And while there’s something validating about the Trump administration finally acknowledging this problem, putting microplastics on a watch list is not protection. Instead, this declared "war on microplastics" is a gift in disguise to the industries driving the crisis.
MAHA Promised Safety, It Gave us Plastic Straws
“Make America Healthy Again” was a rallying cry: Take on the corporate polluters, clean up our food supply, eliminate toxic chemicals, and hold the chemical industry accountable. The MAHA Report acknowledged that microplastics are found in "the blood and urine of American children and pregnant women,” and promised action from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The problem is that the only real way to fix it is to stop it at the source. That means taking on the fossil fuel industry driving plastic production—an industry to which this administration has shown deep loyalty.
That was the promise. But instead, the Trump administration gave us plastic straws and put single-use plastics back in our National Parks. They slashed the EPA's budget nearly in half—the very agency responsible for the new microplastics plan—and fired more than 1,000 of its scientists. They dismantled the agencies that protect us from chemical disasters and exposure to harmful hazards, like lead. They ramped up glyphosate production and appointed chemical-industry lobbyists to leadership roles within the EPA. They’re also weakening the Toxic Substances Control Act and rolling back protections on PFAS in drinking water.
While EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claims the administration is holding itself “to the highest standards to protect the health of every American,” it continues to gut science, weaken laws, and hollow out the very institutions responsible for protecting public health—giving polluting industries a free pass to keep producing more.
Even MAHA advocates are beginning to see through the rhetoric. In a recent letter to the EPA, they urged:“The EPA must choose whether it will uphold a chemical status quo or honor the promise to make this country healthy again. The public is watching. Families are organizing. Scientists are sounding the alarm.”
$144 Million to Understand the Problem, $31 Billion to Fuel It
Microplastics don’t just randomly end up in our bodies. They come from a system designed to produce endless plastic at any cost. That system is fueled by oil, gas, and coal. Nearly 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. Committing $144 million to study microplastics while subsidizing fossil fuels by nearly $31 billion a year is like trying to clean up an oil spill with a spoon while the tanker is still spewing.
The Trump administration has put a spotlight on a serious health crisis. The problem is that the only real way to fix it is to stop it at the source. That means taking on the fossil fuel industry driving plastic production—an industry to which this administration has shown deep loyalty. As Secretary of the US DHHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., put it on Fox News: “A lesson we were all supposed to learn in kindergarten is that you clean up after yourself. You don't force the public to do it.”
The coming months will show whether this administration is serious about action or simply delivering lip service to a disillusioned MAHA ahead of the midterms. If the administration is really committed to making Americans healthy again, it must act where it matters: Set enforceable limits on microplastics in drinking water, restore strong chemical safety laws, halt new plastic production, rebuild the EPA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and revoke the red-carpet access it has granted industry within regulatory agencies.
Above all, it could truly end the war on microplastics by backing a global plastics treaty that limits production in the first place.
Because you cannot detox a body you are still poisoning.
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Don't Call It a 'Bombshell'—Microplastics Science Is Doing Exactly What It Should
The biggest threat isn’t scientific uncertainty, since there’s a considerable amount of scientific consensus that there is plastic in us. The biggest threat is weaponized uncertainty used to delay regulations.
Feb 18, 2026
“Microplastics are everywhere, and they’re harming us.”
“Actually, maybe not.”
“Hold on, that study might be flawed.”
“Bombshell… the whole field is in doubt.”
The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”
If you’ve been hearing about microplastics recently, you may have been getting whiplash from the headlines. But you shouldn’t be.
Because this is what science looks like when it’s working: Researchers test new ideas and challenge each other’s methods. This helps refine what we know. What isn’t supposed to happen is a normal, healthy, scientific process getting manipulated into a dramatic storyline about a fictional scandal—a story that can leave the public confused.
The Myth Machine: How a Story We Tell Can Become a Trap
For over two decades, we’ve studied plastic pollution in the ocean. Scientists started describing the accumulation zones of plastic in the subtropical gyres, the places where wind and water currents concentrate floating debris. The research pointed to a truth that was complicated but clear: Most of the pieces are tiny, fragmented plastic—microplastics—along with some larger marine debris, like fishing gear.
But the media put a spin on it, and gave the world a simpler picture: a floating island of trash, “twice the size of Texas.” Some even called this a “garbage patch” you could supposedly walk on. People cried, “Why can’t I see it on Google Maps?” Some wondered if the US should plant a flag, and a handful of naive entrepreneurs fabricated fantastic ocean cleanup contraptions.
It was dramatic. Word spread. But eventually, it backfired.
All those who went looking for an island, didn’t find one. Instead they concluded, “It’s more like smog than a landfill,” and some pointed out, “Maybe it was exaggerated and the world had been duped.”
The pattern—one that goes oversimplify, sensationalize, backlash, dismissal—can drain urgency from a real crisis. Misinformation gets the headline. This gets repeated, as we’ve seen before in other environmental debates, such as the hole in the ozone layer, or climate change. The same thing is unfolding now with microplastics and human health.
What the “Bombshell” Reporting Gets Wrong
The recent article in The Guardian that sparked this debate focuses on a real issue. In our research studying microplastics in the environment and animal studies, measuring micro- and nanoplastics in human tissue is incredibly hard. It is particularly difficult when researchers are looking for very small particle sizes, where laboratory contamination from airborne sources becomes harder to rule out. This is especially the case in human tissue.
Microplastics are not like other contaminants, such as lead in water, where you can measure parts per billion, and lean on decades of standardized instruments and test methods. Plastics come in many polymers, sizes, and shapes. Nanoplastics behave differently than microplastics. And plastic is everywhere, meaning background contamination is always a risk. This is sometimes called the “pig pen effect”—it is a challenge to study a material that is so widespread.
The Guardian article is not a devastating blow. It’s a scientific debate around specific methods in a research field that is rapidly improving.
What’s the Real Headline?
The headline isn’t “microplastics in people might be wrong,” but rather “quantifying microplastics in human samples is challenging, and the science is evolving in the right direction.”
That difference matters. If the public hears “doubt cast,” then it translates it as “maybe plastic pollution isn’t really there or not that bad.” The question is, does it hold up across methods, across labs, across time?
So what has science taught us?
- Yes, we do have microplastics in our bodies. A number of peer-reviewed research shows that plastics, or plastic-associated signals, are present in human samples. Some findings claims will hold up better with time. That’s normal.
- Scientists criticize each other's studies. This is how science becomes more reliable over time. How methods get stress tested. By challenging assumptions, doing repeated studies, etc. weak studies get corrected or critiqued. In rare cases retracted. This isn’t chaos. It’s science.
- Some headlines are hype. Microplastics science is new enough that every new study can feel like a “first,” which incentivizes media toward shock value. But, when scientific findings revise our understanding, the correction isn’t “nothing to see here.” The correction should be that science is a self-improving enterprise.
- Scientists have been, and will continue revising the numbers. For example, early reporting suggested we each eat a “credit card” of plastic each week (subsequent studies estimated much less). Is that a bombshell? No, not really. And if it’s widely seen as such, it might suggest we should wait before we act (e.g., until every uncertainty is resolved). But, that’s not how public health works. We make decisions based on the best available science, and assess risk with limited data.
Weaponized Uncertainty
The biggest threat here isn’t scientific uncertainty, since there’s a considerable amount of scientific consensus that there is plastic in us. The biggest threat is weaponized uncertainty.
Environmental health has a predictable plot—when evidence starts piling up that a pollutant is harmful, a well-funded countermovement doesn’t always try to prove it’s safe. On the contrary, it tries to prove that the science is messy, uncertain, and “we need more data.”.
We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking.
The industry has a playbook with favorite phrases, such as: “not conclusive,” “uncertain,” “scientists disagree,” “lack of consensus.” Disagreement in science is healthy. However, this (very routine) component of science can also become a winning political strategy used against science and public policy. Casting doubt can delay regulation.
Naomi Oreskes writes in Merchants of Doubt, “The industry had realized you could create the impression of controversy simply by asking questions.” That’s why our concern isn’t that researchers are debating methods. Our concern is that sensational headlines can warp debate, and give merchants of doubt an opportunity to skew public perception.
Red-Flag Language—It Should Make You Pause
We’re not asking journalists to avoid urgency. Plastic pollution is urgent. Certain phrases, however, may signal that you’re being pulled into a pattern of mythmaking, such as “bombshell,” or “debunked,” when what’s really happening is refinement. Those phrases shock and entertain, but do little to foster understanding.
What we actually need next is for the microplastics field to keep growing. Researchers across the board—from those that think studies are exaggerated to those that stand behind their research findings—are making calls for better lab protocols, contamination controls, reporting requirements, and inter-lab studies to validate results. These are unglamorous, but they’re what solidify early research findings into trusted science. A first-of-its-kind finding of plastic somewhere in the human body shouldn’t be framed like the final truth. It should be heralded as the beginning of a more complete picture.
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There Is Still Hope for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty
The plastics crisis must remain a priority in international negotiations.
Dec 05, 2025
Contrary to some reporting, the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty hasn’t failed—but recent talks in Geneva are a blaring wake-up call. If we don’t get this right, human health will suffer for generations, and our climate goals will slip further behind. It is vital that plastics, and the treaty, continue to be a priority in international fora.
Despite 99% of plastics being made from fossil fuel and plastic production projected to triple by 2060, plastics were low on the global agenda at the recently concluded COP30 climate summit. Countries will soon be reconvening at the UN Environmental Assembly (UNEA-7) to confront the world’s biggest environmental problems, presenting another opportunity to restore momentum and align global action on the detrimental environmental, health, and economic impacts of the plastics crisis.
Microplastics are now in even the most remote places on the planet and found throughout human bodies. Thousands of chemicals in plastics have been linked to immune system disorders, hormone imbalances, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and infertility, costing an estimated $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses every year worldwide.
Despite efforts by countries to delay progress at INC 5.2 in August, high-ambition countries succeeded in rejecting a weak deal that failed to protect people and the planet, recognizing it would do more harm than good and take decades to fix. The talks aren’t over: The chance to deliver a treaty that helps to end the plastic pollution crisis is still on the table. Ambitious countries have yet to use all the tools at their disposal, including voting, to secure real progress.
Stalled by Design
The treaty talks haven’t failed, but deep flaws in the process remain. Countries with heavy fossil fuel interests, or “petrostates”—and the lobbyists backing them—are deliberately delaying progress to protect profits. An estimated 234 fossil fuel, petrochemical, and plastics industry lobbyists flooded the Geneva talks, with some even embedded in country delegations. Their goal is for a toothless treaty—one primarily focused on waste management, with voluntary commitments—or for the process to collapse entirely to safeguard business as usual.
Ambitious countries pushed back, rejecting two watered-down proposals in Geneva that would have created exactly that kind of weak agreement, instead of scaling down plastic production. Most plastic can’t and won’t ever be recycled, but ends up landfilled, incinerated, and polluting our communities and environment.
If we want meaningful climate action, we can’t ignore plastic production.
Despite most countries supporting an agreement that curbs plastic production, bans toxic chemicals, and protects human health, a handful of petrostates have blocked such commonsense provisions under the guise of reaching consensus. While consensus may seem ideal, it gives single countries the power to veto widely supported texts and stand in the way of progress. Meanwhile, participation for Indigenous Peoples, scientists, and public interest nonprofits has not lived up to the promise of an open and transparent process.
These dynamics mirror the long delays that have plagued climate action under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change for decades. The plastics industry now heats the world four times more than air travel, and serves as a “Plan B” for fossil fuel companies, letting them protect profits, expand markets, and drive more fossil fuel use. If we want meaningful climate action, we can’t ignore plastic production. That makes a strong, legally binding plastics treaty more urgent than ever.
Path Forward
UN member states must act rather than continue negotiating in circles. With the recent resignation of the chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), 166 members of Civil Society have sent a letter to member states calling for the new chair, when elected, to fix the process. The next chair must ensure the voices of those harmed first and the worst by plastics—from fossil fuel extraction and plastic production to incineration, landfills, and pollution—are heard.
Countries still have a chance to get the treaty process back on track. The plastics crisis is an all-hands-on-deck moment, requiring governments all around the world to respond at the local, national, regional, and international levels. We are already making progress at the international level, as demonstrated with a groundbreaking resolution at the recent International Union for Conservation of Nature. We need to see more of these kinds of actions, not less.
After all, it was at UNEA-5.2 in 2022 that countries first agreed to negotiate a global plastics treaty.
We cannot afford a weak deal. Ambitious countries must exercise their power to call for a vote when low-ambition petrostates weaponize consensus.
If world leaders fix the process and keep ambition high, a treaty that puts people and the planet before plastics and profits is within reach.
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