Insights & Events

Hollingsworth LLP attorneys Heather Pigman and Kate Granruth published an article in the American Bar Association’s Products Liability Litigation newsletter regarding emerging issues in microplastics, notably the prominent roles causation and product identification are expected to play in the emerging microplastics-based products liability litigation.

The use of plastics in both industrial processes and ordinary life has risen significantly since the 1950s. In 2004, the term microplastics was coined to describe small pieces of plastics — whether manufactured to be minuscule or degraded from larger plastics — that are currently defined by U.S. regulatory agencies as typically measuring less than five millimeters in at least one dimension. The EPA notes that microplastics have been detected in every ecosystem on Earth, including the Antarctic tundra, and have been found in many foods and food sources such as seafood, other animal tissue, honey, and sea salt, among many others.

Given reports of plastic pollution and allegations that exposure to microplastics creates health risks, microplastics-based products liability claims are an emerging area of litigation. Most of the cases to date involve allegations that the defendants’ single-use plastic water bottles, sandwich bags, baby wipes, and reusable baby bottles increased the plaintiffs’ exposure to microplastics and caused a variety of alleged harms ranging from developmental delays to cancer. As is often the case with emerging torts, the available science is of widely varying quality and in its infancy.

To date, most of these cases have been resolved at the motion to dismiss stage. In doing so, courts have generally identified two primary recurring deficiencies: (1) plaintiffs’ inability to identify a particular defendant’s product as the source of exposure and (2) insufficient allegations to support scientific causation. Product identification is a crucial element for prevailing on any claim but is particularly challenging in the microplastics context, given the wide variety of plastics in everyday life. Further, the properties of “plastics” are generally not uniform. Plastics are manufactured with different chemical formulations and designed for a wide variety of applications. This variety and widespread use make it difficult for plaintiffs to connect an alleged injury to a specific defendant’s product.

Plaintiffs also must establish a plausible connection between microplastics and the harm claimed. To date, they have struggled to establish either general causation (that microplastics from a particular product can cause the alleged harm) or specific causation (that microplastics from a specific product caused the plaintiff’s harm). However, at least one court has denied a motion to dismiss, finding that general scientific literature was sufficient to support claims that exposure to microplastics created an unreasonable safety hazard.

These differing outcomes suggest that microplastics litigation is likely to expand, with product identification, general causation, and specific causation remaining critical issues in future cases.

ABA newsletter subscribers may also access the article online.

@2026. Published in Products Liability Litigation, Vol. 37, No. 1, Winter 2026, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association or the copyright holder.