Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment her Department has made of the levels of microplastics in rivers.

In Defra’s recently published Plan for Water we said that we are increasing our understanding of the level and extent of microplastics in the water environment, and their impact on humans and wildlife, by developing methods to measure the amount and types of microplastics and microfibres in rivers and sediment.

The Environment Agency (EA) does not currently routinely monitor rivers for microplastics. In 2021, Defra, with support from the EA, commissioned a pilot study to develop sampling and analytical protocols for quantifying microplastics in surface waters and sediments. The final report is expected in summer 2023. The findings from the pilot study will inform a microplastics monitoring strategy for river catchments in England.

The EA is currently working with water companies to secure funding through the Water Industry National Environment Programme for the monitoring of microplastics from wastewater treatment processes that contain plastic media. This will help us gain a better understanding of the release of microplastics from wastewater treatment processes to rivers. Additionally, biosolids derived from wastewater treatment will be investigated to understand if microplastics are released when the biosolids are applied to land.