Water Filtration

Microplastics have become one of the quietest concerns in modern drinking water: too small for most people to see, yet widespread enough to raise serious questions about long-term exposure. In Virginia, 18-year-old high school student Mia Heller turned that concern into a working invention. After learning about water contamination issues in her community, she developed …

Mia Heller was not looking for a science fair project when she picked up her local newspaper a few years ago. She was just a teenager in Warrenton, Virginia, scanning headlines over breakfast. But one article stopped her cold. It reported that her neighborhood’s tap water was contaminated with PFAS chemicals and microplastic pollution, and …