Chromium

None of us can take anything with us when we're gone. It's what we leave that's gonna matter - Erin Brockovich

Chromium
Chromium

image by: Erin Brockovich

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We've got the secret to cleaner water: more plastic

Our waterways are teeming with plastic waste. Some five trillion bits now clog the world's oceans, ending up in everything from deep-sea sediments to plankton guts. Nobody wants this - except chemist Abby Knight, that is. In fact, she's adding more.

Abby Knight's array of plastic microbeads grab on to pieces of toxic metal (green) in contaminated groundwater. The balls are doused in a dye to show how much metal each one has absorbed. The darker the pink, the more rubbish they've mopped up.

Since 2011, the 26-year-old post-doc, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been building a vast library of plastic microbeads -- each the size of a grain…

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  We've got the secret to cleaner water: more plastic

Chromium is nasty. In high enough doses, the industrial byproduct can cause cancer. "Currently we attempt to solve it by saying, 'Don't drink this water and eventually it will diffuse,'" Knight says. But her beads offer a solution.

15 years after 'Erin Brockovich,' town still fearful of polluted water

As residents leave, the cleanup has progressed and technologies have improved. About 250 acres of alfalfa and other grasses now dot the town where some properties once stood and are used to help convert chromium 6 into the micronutrient chromium 3. But despite the progress, many residents still worry about how much chromium 6 will remain in the water. PG&E is required to clean up to the levels at which chromium 6 naturally occurs in the groundwater — a number known as the background level.

Erin Brockovich

Every day Erin Brockovich is helping people who have suffered because of environmental contamination, bad medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Chromium is released to air primarily by combustion processes and metal industries. Non-occupational sources of chromium include contaminated soil, air, water, smoking, and diet.

EWG

EWG found cancer-causing chromium-6 in tap water from 31 of 35 cities it tested. Americans deserve the protection of official safety standards to protect our water and health. Learn more.

ToxTown

Chromium is a naturally-occurring element found in several forms in rocks, plants, soil, foods such as vegetables and nuts, and volcanic dust and gases. Tobacco products contain chromium. Chromium is also released from burning natural gas, oil, or coal.

WorstPolluted.org

The primary health impacts from chromium are damage to the gastrointestinal, respiratory, and immunological systems, as well as reproductive and developmental problems. Chromium VI is a known human carcinogen, and depending on the exposure route, can increase the rate of various types of cancers.

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