Clean Technica | By: James Ayre | September 10th, 2017:
The scale of the world’s current micro plastics pollution problem can’t be overstated. Plastics, and more importantly their nearly invisible half-broken-down remnants, are now everywhere. They’re in the food you eat, the water you drink, and even often enough in the air you breathe.
Even knowing that, I was still somewhat surprised by the findings of a recent study investigating the scale of micro plastic fiber pollution in tap water around the world. The findings are almost hard to believe. Apparently, around 94.4% of US tap water is now contaminated with micro plastics.
And the situation isn’t much better elsewhere — in Lebanon, the contamination rate is 93.8%; in India, it’s 82.4%; in Uganda, it’s 80.8%; and even in “Europe,” it’s 72.2%.
The average number of plastic fibers found in each 500ml sample taken in the US by researchers was 4.8 (the world’s leader on the metric, apparently). Even in Europe the average was still 1.9 plastic fibers per 500ml sample; and that’s apparently as good as it gets anywhere in the world (as far as tap water goes).
So, learning this, you may now be saying: “Who cares, I’ll live on beer!” But that won’t work either, as other recent research has shown that practically all of the world’s major beer brands sell product contaminated with micro plastics as well. And the situation with regard to flours, honeys, and other common food items isn’t much better, going on other recent research.
That goes for the sea salt that’s in the majority of the food you eat as well. Numerous studies in recent years have found that sea salt products throughout Europe, the US, China, and elsewhere are essentially all host to significant quantities of micro plastics.
These micro plastics are known to very easily absorb toxic chemicals and to play host to dangerous microbes. Recent research has shown that these chemicals are released into the bodies of animals following ingestion.
Plymouth University Professor Richard Thompson commented: “It became clear very early on that the plastic would release those chemicals and that actually, the conditions in the gut would facilitate really quite rapid release.”
So, if you eat these micro plastics — or if a seagull does, or a trout, or a whale, etc. — they don’t just pass right through you, but rather release their poisons into you.
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