Microplastics are everywhere— the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. New research reveals more about these dangerously small problem creators.
Microplastics are taking over!
Year after year, we generate millions of tonnes of plastics and with time they break down, seeping into the food chain and ecosystem. Some choke the marine life while some also enter our bodies without our knowledge. These tiny fragments known as microplastics are a pollutant and harmful to both health and the environment. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Chemical Agency, all plastic fragments under 5mm in length are classified as microplastics.
Additionally, plastic pollution has become dangerously common. The “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is an instance where things are getting out of hand. A shocking analysis by the WFF reveals that on average, people consume and breathe in up to 5 grams of plastic every week. Recently researchers discovered that plastic exists in our bodies. Hence, making it a possibility that we have been ingesting plastics by eating, breathing, and drinking. In 2019 alone humans consumed 460 million tonnes of microplastics. The numbers are twice as much compared to 20 years ago. Additionally, only 10 percent went for recycling.
More on the pollution and its effects
The UN is processing a legally binding agreement for addressing the global plastic crisis. The organization is also warning that the world is facing a pollution crisis in addition to the climate and biodiversity crisis.
“We did not imagine 10 years ago that there could be so many small microplastics, invisible to the naked eye, and that they were everywhere around us,” stated Jean-Francois Ghiglione. Ghiglione is a researcher at France’s Laboratory of Microbial Oceanography. He explained that scientists are finding microplastics in several organs including kidneys, spleen, lungs, and the placenta.
“Small microplastics invisible to the naked eye have deleterious effects on all the animals that we have studied in the marine environment, or on land,” he added.
” People cannot stop breathing, so even if you change your eating habits you will still inhale them. They’re everywhere,” explained Bart Koelmans. Koelmans is a professor of Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality at Wageningen University.