It Started With My Own Tap Water

In late 2024, I got curious about what was actually in my tap water. Not lead, not bacteria — the city tests for those. I wanted to know about microplastics: the tiny fragments of plastic that are showing up in everything from bottled water to human blood.

I looked into getting my water tested. The cheapest lab I could find charged $598 for a single sample. And all you got back was a PDF with numbers. No images, no context, just data points that meant nothing to a normal person.

That felt wrong. So I started digging.

Building a Scope in My Garage

It turns out marine biologists have been detecting microplastics in ocean water for years using a technique called fluorescence microscopy. You stain a water sample with a dye called Nile Red, which binds to plastic polymers. Under the right wavelength of light, the plastic particles glow bright orange against a dark background. Simple, visual, unmistakable.

I built a rig to do the same thing for tap water. Custom filtration setup, fluorescence optics, darkfield imaging. The first sample I ran was from my own kitchen sink in West LA.

There were particles. Not a ton — but they were there. Glowing orange against the black filter membrane. Plastic, in my drinking water.

Then the Neighbors Asked

I showed a few friends. They wanted their water tested too. So I ran their samples. Then their neighbors heard about it. Word got around.

I posted the results on Reddit — a contamination map of 20 locations across West LA. The response was immediate.

People from all over LA started reaching out. The Valley, the Eastside, South Bay, Pasadena. Everyone wanted to know: what's in my water?

From Side Project to Community Map

What started as personal curiosity became something bigger. I set up a way for people to mail in samples — sterile glass vials, prepaid return mailers, the whole thing. Within weeks we had 50+ samples from homes across the city.

Every result goes on the map. Every neighborhood that gets tested adds a data point. The more people contribute, the clearer the picture gets.

We're building something that doesn't exist yet: a detailed, neighborhood-level map of microplastic contamination in a major US city. Not from a government agency. Not from a lab charging $600 a test. From regular people testing their own water.

Where We're Going

The goal is 100 samples across LA. Then 200. Every new sample makes the map more useful for everyone. If enough neighborhoods participate, we'll have the data to see real patterns — which water districts have higher counts, whether building age matters, how filters actually perform.

All results are published openly. The methodology is based on the same protocols used by the EPA, NOAA, and NIST for environmental microplastic detection.

This is a community project. The map belongs to everyone who contributes to it.