Scientists are finding microplastics everywhere, from brain tissue to arteries, and warn of health risks that its accumulation in our body implies. They are also discovering the ease with which the tiny particles get there.
Microplastics not only detach from plastic items due to excessive use, such as when a bottle of water is broken after weeks or months of being washed and filled. They are also filtered in our food and drinks with the use, even if it is brief, of a product with plastic components, which alarms scientists.
“We are talking about cardiovascular mortality,” said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, director of the Grossman Center for environmental hazard research at New York University. “We are also talking about hormones sensitive cancers – breast, thyroid, ovary, not to mention kidney cancer – which have been associated with these chemical exposures.”
Microplastics are tiny plastic fragments of less than 5 millimeters in diameter, some of a fraction of the width of a human hair. And nanoplastic, even smaller plastic particles that measure less than one million meter, are too small to be seen with standard microscopes based on light.
Scientists have found these particles worldwide, from the snow of Antarctica to coral reefs and throughout our body, even in babies. It has generated concern the speed with which microplastics can accumulate in humans and ecosystems. And although a lot of impacts are still unknown, researchers fear more and more that these pollutants are feeding ecological and health crises.
The microplastics They constantly detach from everyday items such as containers and vesselsincluding products that we do not always consider plastics, according to Victoria Fulfer, postdoctoral fellow of the University of Rhode Island that studies how microplastics reach the water.
“We store much of our plastic foods,” said Fulfer, who also works for the 5 Gyres Institute, a non -profit group that investigates contamination with plastics.
“Not only (a product) is packed in plastic when we buy it in the store, but then we cook it and, often, we put it in plastic containers to store it in the fridge, because it is easy and cheap,” he said. “” And that plastic is filtered in our foods. “
Fulfer’s research has shown that even smaller plastic particles can accumulate in large volumes in relatively short periods, which reflects how widely used the plastic materials have become and how easily they decompose. An article published in 2023 revealed that more than 1,000 tons of microplastics have accumulated on the floor of Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island, only in the last two decades.
Fulfer made a demonstration in his university laboratory for NBC News about how easy it is for microplastics to detach themselves in food and drinks. He cut only two slices of white onion in a red plastic cut board, rinsed the slices, leaked the rinse water and put the filter under a microscope. The slide It showed tiny red plastic particles that had detached themselves from the cutting table and had stayed in the onion.
When Fulfer put hot pasta in a black plastic bowl to carry and followed the same procedure, he saw microplastics again under the microscope. They even detached more from the container and leaked in the pasta when he warmed it in the microwave in the same container.
“In general, when a container says that it is suitable for microwave, it means that it is safe to put it in the microwave, which is not going to melt,” said Fulfer. “But that does not mean that it is safe for you as a person, because heating plastic in the microwave especially changes the chemical bonds, makes them weaker. And that allows any chemical that there in those plastics, and also in the nanoplastic, it is filtered from that container to the food you are heating.”
A recent study from the University of Nebraska discovered that heating a plastic container in the microwave caused more microplastics and nanoplastic to be filtered in food than to cool the container or keep it at room temperature.
The problem is not limited to single -use containers that are destined to be discarded, which are already an important source of plastic pollution worldwide. Fulfer also found microplastics when he warmed in the peasal microwave in a plastic container designed to be reused.
Fulfer has discovered that even products that people do not usually consider plastics can detach microplastics. When he heated water in the microwave in a glass of paper with the laminated interior, he removed it briefly, leaked it and performed a laser analysis, he found polyethylene fragments, a type of microplastic.
Other researchers have even indicated the gum as possible guilty, and a very small study discovered that a single piece could release hundreds or thousands of microplastics in saliva.
Researchers claim that the plastic of our food and drinks is likely accumulate in our bodies.
In a study published this year, researchers from the University of Health Sciences of New Mexico found “alarmingly high” levels of microplastics in the human brain. There seems to be more in people with dementia, although scientists do not know if the greatest presence of plastics has really caused that evil. Another study published last year for a group of Italian researchers discovered that people with microplastics on the plate of their arteries had a greater risk of suffering a heart attack, a stroke or death, although that finding also does not prove a direct cause.
Plastic producers insist that their products are safe and claim that there are few materials that can rival plastics in terms of versatility, cost and comfort.
“There is nothing more important for our industry than safe products and materials,” Matt Seaholm, president and executive director of the Plastic Industry Association. “These materials are not only safe, but also essential for our daily life: they maintain fresh foods, guarantee that medical supplies remain sterile and improve the quality of life in general.”
Trasande said that consumers They do not need to eliminate all plasticsbut recommended using them less. “We need to take simple and safe measures to reduce our plastic footprint,” he said.
That could involve changing glass or stainless steel containers, or replacing plastic cutting boards with other wood. To heat food and drinks in the microwave, glass or ceramics could be a better option.
“We are talking about very low doses exhibitions that have serious repercussions,” Transande said. “Reducing those exhibitions, even in that low range, can have huge benefits.”
