Does Brita Filter Microplastics? The Honest UK Answer

If you own a Brita jug — and millions of UK households do — the question is obvious: does it filter out microplastics?

The short answer: not reliably, and Brita does not claim it does. The Maxtra Pro cartridges sold in UK supermarkets make no microplastic removal claim and hold no certification for it. Independent testing of this style of filter suggests it should not be relied on for microplastics. Brita does sell products with genuine microparticle claims — but the jug on your counter is not one of them.

Here is exactly what Brita claims, what the independent evidence shows, and what to use instead if microplastics are your priority.

What Brita Actually Claims — Product by Product

Brita’s published claims differ significantly across its range, and the differences are revealing:

Product	Sold in UK?	Microplastic or microparticle claim
Maxtra Pro (jug cartridge, All-in-1 / Pure Performance)	Yes	None. Claims cover chlorine, limescale, lead, copper, and “particles from pipes”
MicroDisc (bottle and carafe filter)	Yes	Retains “micro-particles (≥ 15 μm)“
mypure SLIM V-MF (on-tap system)	Yes	”Stops 99.999% of bacteria and the finest micro-particles >0,5 µm”
Elite pitcher filter	No (US and Canada only)	Certified to reduce microplastics (0.5–1 μm particles) by 99.6% under NSF/ANSI 401

Taking these in turn:

The Maxtra Pro — the cartridge that fits every current Brita jug sold in the UK — is described on Brita’s UK product pages as reducing chlorine, lead, and copper, protecting appliances against limescale, and (in the Pure Performance variant) filtering certain herbicides, pesticides, and pharmaceutical residues, with PFOA/PFOS reduction tested to NSF/ANSI 53. The word “microplastics” does not appear. The closest claim is a “super fine filter mesh” providing “superb particle retention, ideal for older pipework” — and Brita publishes no pore-size figure for it.

The MicroDisc, used in Brita’s filter bottles and carafes, is the only product in Brita’s UK consumer range with a published particle-size figure: Brita’s own FAQ says it traps “micro-particles (≥ 15 μm)”. That would catch larger microplastic fragments and most fibres, but not the smaller particles that dominate tap water samples.

The mypure SLIM V-MF on-tap system uses a genuine microfiltration membrane. Brita claims it “stops 99.999% of bacteria and the finest micro-particles >0,5 µm”. A 0.5 micrometre physical barrier would remove the vast majority of microplastics measured in tap water studies — though Brita stops short of using the word microplastics for this product.

The Brita Elite is the interesting one. In North America, Brita sells a pitcher filter that is certified by the WQA against NSF/ANSI 401 for microplastics reduction: 99.6% removal of particles in the 0.5–1 μm range, against a standard requiring at least 85%. In other words, when Brita wants to make a microplastic claim, it gets the filter certified and publishes the data. No such certification exists for the Maxtra Pro — and the Elite does not fit UK Brita jugs.

How the Maxtra Pro Works — and Why That Matters

The Maxtra Pro contains three filtration elements, per Brita’s own description: ion-exchange pearls, activated carbon granules made from coconut shells, and a fine mesh.

• Ion-exchange resin swaps dissolved calcium, magnesium, lead, and copper ions for hydrogen ions. It works on dissolved substances only — it does nothing to solid plastic particles.
• Granular activated carbon removes chlorine and organic compounds by adsorption — molecules sticking to the carbon’s porous surface. Microplastics are not meaningfully removed by adsorption; they can only be physically trapped in the gaps between carbon granules, and those gaps in loose granular carbon are large and inconsistent.
• The fine mesh is a physical barrier, and will catch particles bigger than its pores. Since Brita publishes no pore size for it, there is no way to know from the specification where that cut-off falls.

Meanwhile, the plastic particles a filter has to catch skew small. The most sensitive counting method published to date — PNAS, 2024 — analysed bottled water rather than tap, and found roughly 240,000 particles per litre, around 90% of them nanoplastics below 1 μm. That is a bottled-water result and we are not going to present it as a tap-water one. What it does establish is that the counting methods used in older tap water surveys could not see particles at that scale at all, so the small end of the distribution is systematically undercounted everywhere it has been measured — and it is precisely the end a jug mesh has no chance of trapping.

What Independent Testing Shows

The most directly relevant independent evidence is a 2023 University of Toronto study published in Polymers, which tested pour-through jug filters — the same format as a Brita — against water spiked with PET and PVC fragments and nylon fibres.

The results were striking:

• The device that used only granular activated carbon and ion-exchange resin — coconut-based carbon, a 150-litre rated capacity, the same architecture and capacity class as UK supermarket jug cartridges — performed worst. At some points in its lifespan it released more PET and PVC fragments into the water than it removed, apparently shedding previously trapped particles or its own material.
• The two devices that included a membrane microfiltration stage removed 78–86% of PVC fragments and 94–100% of PET fragments.
• The one thing the carbon-and-resin jug did catch reliably was long nylon fibres (around 0.8 mm) — large enough for almost any mesh to stop.

The study anonymised the brands tested, so we cannot say whether the weakest device was a Brita. But the design it describes matches the jug-cartridge format sold in the UK, and the conclusion is clear: activated carbon plus ion exchange is not a microplastic removal technology. A membrane is.

No peer-reviewed test of the Maxtra Pro’s microplastic removal has been published as of this writing. Given that Brita demonstrably certifies and publishes microplastic data where it has it (the Elite), the absence of any claim for the Maxtra Pro is worth taking at face value.

Does That Make a Brita Jug Useless?

No — it just makes it the wrong tool for this particular job.

The Maxtra Pro does what it actually claims reasonably well: limescale reduction (tested to 150 litres of carbonate hardness reduction), chlorine taste, lead and copper. If you bought your Brita for better-tasting tea and less kettle scale in a hard water area, it is doing its job.

It is also worth keeping the scale of the problem in perspective. Measured microplastic counts in tap water are low in absolute terms — a global survey of 159 tap water samples found a mean of 5.45 particles per litre — and no UK-specific figure is well established in the peer-reviewed literature; see our full breakdown of what the research says about microplastics in UK tap water. And whatever you do, do not switch to bottled water: research in PNAS found roughly 240,000 nanoplastic particles per litre in bottled water, with the plastic bottle itself as the main source. Our comparison of bottled water vs tap water covers this in detail.

If Microplastics Are Your Priority

Work up this ladder instead:

1. Free: boil and strain. A 2024 study in Environmental Science & Technology Letters found that boiling tap water for five minutes and pouring it through a simple filter removed around 90% of nano- and microplastics in very hard water, and at least 80% in hard water above 120 mg/L calcium carbonate — though only about 25% in soft water. Our guide to removing microplastics from drinking water explains the method step by step.
2. A filter with a membrane, not just carbon. That means a microfiltration stage with a stated pore size (0.5 μm or smaller), an NSF/ANSI 53 cyst-reduction certification (which verifies removal down to 1 μm), or an NSF/ANSI 401 microplastics certification. Brita’s own mypure V-MF on-tap system qualifies on stated pore size; most jug cartridges do not.
3. Reverse osmosis for maximum removal, including nanoplastics, if budget and installation allow.

For specific products available from UK retailers, certifications compared, and our picks at each price point, see our full guide to the best water filters for microplastics in the UK.

And whichever filter you choose, drink the result from glass or stainless steel — a Klean Kanteen Classic or Lifefactory glass bottle — rather than reintroducing plastic at the last step.

The Verdict

• Does Brita filter microplastics? The UK jug filters (Maxtra Pro): no claim, no certification, and no published pore size — treat the answer as no, beyond incidental capture of larger fragments and fibres.
• Does any Brita product? Yes — the mypure V-MF on-tap system claims microparticle filtration above 0.5 μm, and the US-market Elite pitcher filter is certified to remove 99.6% of 0.5–1 μm microplastics. Neither is the jug cartridge UK shoppers actually buy.
• Should you replace your jug? Not if you bought it for taste and limescale. If you bought it for microplastics, a membrane-based filter — or simply boiling and straining in a hard water area — is the evidence-backed choice.

Sources

1. BRITA MAXTRA PRO PURE PERFORMANCE cartridge product page — Brita UK
2. BRITA FAQ: Filters & cartridges — Brita UK (MicroDisc ≥ 15 μm claim)
3. BRITA mypure SLIM V-MF product page — Brita UK
4. Performance Data Sheet for Brita System with Brita Elite Filter — Brita (NSF/ANSI 401 microplastics reduction, 99.6%)
5. Microplastic Removal from Drinking Water Using Point-of-Use Devices — Cherian et al., Polymers, 2023
6. Drinking Boiled Tap Water Reduces Human Intake of Nanoplastics and Microplastics — Yu et al., Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 2024
7. Rapid single-particle chemical imaging of nanoplastics by SRS microscopy — Qian et al., PNAS, 2024 (bottled water)
8. Anthropogenic contamination of tap water, beer, and sea salt — Kosuth et al., PLOS ONE, 2018 (159 globally sourced tap water samples; global figures, not UK-specific)

This article is based on manufacturer specifications and published research. Product claims were checked against Brita’s UK website in July 2026. It does not constitute health advice.