Associate Professor Rajani Srinivasan, who served as lead investigator for the project, said that while microplastics themselves may not be hazardous to ingest, the problem comes when substances bind to them that could potentially be toxic or harmful to the body. It turns out that the same polysaccharides that cause okra to leave a sticky substance on your fingers when cutting and turn slimy when added to heat can also make great flocculants for cleaning water. "We don't have to build something new to incorporate these materials for water treatment purposes