Does Path water have microplastics?
Yes. We bought Path at a grocery store in Los Angeles and it tested positive for particles consistent with microplastics, with a PET fluorescence signature.
So did the other six brands we tested. Not one came back clean. What follows is the reading, how it was produced, and — the part that matters most — what a fluorescent dye can and cannot prove.
Path returned the lowest reading of the seven. It is still a clear PET signal, and the gap between Path and Dasani is narrower than the gap between either of them and a clean filter. Lowest of the batch is not the same as clean.
What the reading is — and isn’t
The number above is a fluorescence signal strength, not a particle count. It comes from staining the sample with undiluted Nile Red, pushing it through a PCTE membrane, and measuring how brightly the retained material glows across three wavelengths. A brand with a higher reading produced a stronger signal from material consistent with plastic. Nobody counted 143 of anything.
The scored brands span a narrow range, from Path at 106 to Dasani at 143. Three brands were not assigned a number in this round. We are not going to rank those three against each other to fill out a list, because we do not have the data to do it honestly.
Nile Red binds hydrophobic material. Plastic is hydrophobic — and so are lipids, oils, and some organic debris. That is why every result here is phrased as particles consistent with microplastics rather than as confirmed plastic. Definitive polymer identification requires spectroscopy, not a dye. Our full error budget, including the contamination sources we know about and the ones we suspect, is published at thewatertest.com/limitations. Read it before you treat any number on this page as gospel.
These are results from an ongoing study, not a peer-reviewed paper. Our method is adapted from published work (Meyers et al. 2022; Leonard et al. 2022); those authors have not reviewed or validated it.
The other six brands
Path was one of seven bought together and run the same way. Reading any single brand in isolation is a mistake — the finding of the study is not that Path is bad, it is that the container is the common thread and every brand tested positive.
Read the full comparison, including how we identified the plastic type and why the aluminum cans scored the same as the plastic bottles, in We Tested 7 Bottled Water Brands for Microplastics.
People also ask
+Does Path water have microplastics?
Yes. In our screening, Path tested positive for particles consistent with microplastics under Nile Red staining, with a dominant PET fluorescence signature. Nile Red stains hydrophobic material rather than plastic specifically, so this is a screening result, not chemical confirmation.
+What kind of plastic was found in Path?
The dominant fluorescence signature was PET — the plastic used in water bottles and can linings. The stain indicates material consistent with PET; definitive polymer identification requires spectroscopy, not a dye.
+Is Path safe to drink?
No regulator has set a health-based limit for microplastics in drinking water, so a positive screening result is not a safety finding. Path tested positive for particles consistent with microplastics, in the same range as the other six brands we bought — every one came back positive, whether it was bottled from purified tap, spring, or artesian water.
+Is Path BPA-free?
We didn't test Path's can for BPA — this study only screens for microplastics via Nile Red staining. Aluminum cans carry a thin epoxy lining so the beverage doesn't react with the metal, and that lining has historically been a BPA source industry-wide, though many can makers have shifted to BPA-alternative linings in recent years. Check Path's own packaging or site for its current lining chemistry — we can't confirm it from this study.
+Does Path water have PFAS?
We don't know — this screening detects particles consistent with microplastics and nothing else, so it can't say anything about PFAS in Path either way. PFAS is a different chemical class that needs its own lab test, and we didn't run one. Where we do have PFAS data is tap water: this site maps PFAS test results for US public water systems.
+Where does Path's water come from?
Marketed as purified water. Sold in a refillable aluminum bottle. That's the utility's/brand's own sourcing claim, not something we independently verified — our test measured what came out of the bottle, not where the water started.
+Which bottled water had the most microplastics?
By screening signal strength, Dasani read highest at 143 and Path lowest at 106 — a narrow band. Three brands (Fiji, Evian, San Pellegrino) tested positive but were not assigned a number this round, so we do not rank them against the rest. Every brand tested positive.
Test your own bottle
We ran Path once, from one lot. The only way to know what a bottle in your fridge is shedding is to test it yourself. The same Nile Red screen we used here comes as an at-home kit — stain a 100 mL pour, filter it, and count the particles consistent with microplastics under the scope in about 15 minutes.
Test bottled water for microplastics at home →Path is a registered trademark of its owner. The Water Map is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by that company. The brand name is used here only to identify the specific product tested. We purchased the product at retail, at our own expense, and received nothing from anyone in connection with this test.
Every test we run is published, including the ones that make our own method look bad. All of our data is open — see the license.