Microplastics:Lawsuits against the bottled water industry are multiplying in the USA

In the United States, five collective actions against the bottled water industry have already been launched in the first months of this year.Citizens, in particular, are accusing producers of a lack of transparency, as they do not report the presence of microplastics in water labels, despite numerous studies having confirmed this presence.Even if the scientific community is still investigating the damage caused by microplastics, the plaintiffs are determined to take the matter to court.The accusation alleges that companies that produce and sell bottled water violated consumer protection regulations labeling their water as “natural”.In reality, it is presumed to contain microplastics, i.e. microscopic and potentially toxic fragments of plastic that are anything but natural.

Specifically, disputes involve companies The Wonderful Co., Bluetriton Brands Inc., Danone Waters of America LLC and CG Roxane LLC.The class action against The Wonderful Co., the company producing Fiji bottled water, claims that the presence of microplastics in the water contradicts the company's advertising, raising concerns about the potential for consumer deception and the health risks associated with microplastics, which extensive research suggests have toxic effects on humans.The collective cause he states that “microplastics are not present in nature”, but “usually made of polypropylene, polyethylene, polystyrene and other synthetic polymers”, being capable of damaging the human circulatory system and causing a series of disorders.The lawsuits brought against BlueTriton Brands Inc, producer of Ice Mountain bottled water, and Danone Waters of America LLC, producer of Evian water, move in the same vein, accusing them of having falsely advertised their products as “100% natural spring water” despite being aware that they contained potentially harmful microplastics.The same goes for the CG Roxane company, accused for failing to warn consumers that its “natural Alpine spring water” contains microplastics.

Nanoplastics are tiny particles corresponding to about a thousandth of the average width of a hair (therefore they are of the order of a billionth of a meter) and are so small that they can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract and lungs or even end up in the blood, depositing potentially harmful chemicals such as bisphenols, phthalates, PFAS and heavy metals.An important study published in January in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), conducted by researchers from the US universities Columbia and Rutgers, has revealed that a liter of bottled water could contain up to 370 thousand microscopic plastic particles, approximately 100 times higher than the previous estimate (with an average of 240 thousand fragments per liter).The samples used by the researchers tested positive for polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polymethylmethacrylate, PET and finally polyamide, which paradoxically would be linked to the plastic filters used for purification before bottling.However, the authors stated that it is currently not yet possible to know whether or not the pieces of nanoplastics are directly harmful to health:«We don't know whether and how dangerous they are.We know they enter tissues, and current research is looking at what they do in cells,” reported co-author Phoebe Stapleton.

[by Stefano Baudino]