Here’s what scientists know so far about the health effects of nanoplastics, and what you can do to reduce your exposure.
A liter of bottled water contains nearly a quarter of a million pieces of nanoplastic on average, according to new research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. urea making machine
Measuring less than a micron, these nanoplastics are often a tiny fraction of the size of a speck of household dust. In the new study, scientists developed a novel imaging technique which showed that the number of nanoplastic particles in bottled water was between 10 and 100 times higher than previously estimated, said Wei Min, a biophysicist at Columbia University and a co-author of the study.
“Millions of tons of plastic are produced around the world each year,” said Douglas Walker, an analytical chemist at Emory University who was not involved in the new research. Microscopic particles from those plastics can end up in food and beverages in the manufacturing process — they might be introduced through plastic tubing used in machinery, for example — or leach in from packaging such as plastic bottles.
“If you think about the potential for their presence as environmental contaminants, it’s huge,” he said.
But while nanoplastics and slightly larger particles, known as microplastics, are increasingly being found in our food, drinks and even our bodies, their effects on our health are still unclear.
Here’s what we know so far, and what you can do to reduce your exposure.
Researchers don’t have strong evidence yet for how these particles affect our health. A handful of small studies have found that they can cross the blood-brain barrier, enter the placenta and show up in our urine.
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