Plastic has become an inescapable presence in our modern world, infiltrating our food, water, and everyday products. From the packaging that encases our groceries to the bottles we drink from, plastic surrounds us. In this article, we explore the pervasive nature of plastic and provide tips on how individuals can actively reduce their plastic consumption and make more sustainable choices to minimize its detrimental impact on our health.
—
Plastic Is Everywhere
In recent years, plastic has been a topic of heightened interest around the world. From recycling facilities piling high with plastics to our oceans becoming infiltrated with micro and nanoplastics, plastic pollution worldwide has gotten completely out of hand and is leading to severe human and environmental impacts.
With new research into plastics, researchers are beginning to discover just how far plastics have traveled into our everyday lives. What once was exclusively looked at as an environmental concern has now become a human health crisis, as plastics have made their way to our everyday diet.
The Standard American Diet (SAD) already consists of ultra-processed foods, added sugars, fats, and sodium, all things that greatly impact our health and reduce our lifespan. We can now add one more item to that list, plastic.
According to a 2019 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study, humans are consuming an average credit card-worth of plastic every week, or about 52 credit cards every year.
Phoebe Stapleton, an associate professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Rutgers University, and one of the authors behind the study, said the research does not take into account nanoplastics that are also being consumed.
While research mostly focuses on well-known microplastics, fragments of plastic smaller than 5mm and larger than 1 micron (1/1000th of a millimeter) in length, nanoplastics, which measure less than one micron and are no wider than a human hair, are believed to be even more toxic since their smaller size makes it easier for them to enter human organs and bloodstream.
“Nano-sized plastic particles are significantly harder to identify, and thereby quantify,” Stapleton said, suggesting it is far more likely we are consuming more plastic than we think. Additionally, Stapleton and her team discovered 20 pieces of microplastic in every 10 grams of human feces.
But how exactly are micro and nonoplastics making their way into the food chain?
Let’s start with something simple and quite common around the world: takeaway coffee. To-go coffee cups, nowadays mostly made of paper, may seem harmless at first. However, not many know the inside of most paper cups – approximately 5-10% of the cup – is covered in a thin plastic film. A 2023 study published in Nature has shown that, as hot liquid is poured into the cup, toxic chemicals begin leaching out of this thin plastic layer, ending up in our stomach. And in 2019, a research group from India found that approximately 15 minutes after a paper cup is filled with a hot liquid, a number of microplastic particles originating from the plastic lining – an average of 25,000 particles per 100ml-cup – are released.
The same thing applies to most packaging items, from takeaway boxes to everyday products at the grocery store, including milk, cheese, and bread.
Another common source of microplastics, which might shock most of us, are plastic water bottles. Similar to takeaway cups, a 2024 study found that plastic bottles can shed nonoplastic particles during the bottling or capping phase. Besides bottles, water itself can often be contaminated, as plastic waste that ends up in water bodies such as rivers and lakes breaks down into tiny particles. A recent study looking at five different water bottles from three popular brands, which researchers declined to identify, found, on average, 240,000 particles from seven different types of plastic, mostly in the form of nanoplastics.
More on the topic: One Liter of Bottled Water Contains About 240,000 Plastic Particles, New Study Finds
However, it is not just packaged products that are making their way into our food chain.
Fruits and vegetables have also been found to contain plastics. Many farms around the world use fertilizers sourced from our wastewater systems. The byproduct of the treated water is sewer sludge, a substance high in nutrients that makes great fertilizer. Although the process is considered a good use of the byproduct, it is releasing microplastics into the soils in which we grow our foods.
A 2024 analysis from Consumer Reports indicated that there is widespread presence of plastics in our food system. The report found that 84 out of 85 supermarkets came back positive for phthalates, a chemical used in the production of plastics. The same report also found 79% of food samples taken contained bisphenol A, another chemical contained in plastics.
It comes as no surprise, then, that plastics are now also found in human stools and blood.
Can We Avoid Plastic?
The easiest way we have to avoid ingesting plastic is to reduce our exposure to plastic products and materials. Using reusable metal bottles, coffee containers, glass tupperware, and purchasing food products that are not wrapped in plastics. For those lucky enough to be in a situation that allows them to change their buying habits, a good thing to consider is also a shift to sustainable packaging alternatives. Having consumers support more sustainable alternatives will likely nudge companies to do the same. It is up to each of us to stay informed, share what we know about the use of plastics, and create a system of change in our communities.
We can and should also press for policy changes that ensure stricter guidelines are being followed in food safety processes and that limit or reduce the use of plastics in our food chain. We also need ongoing testing from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or similar authorities to verify that we are keeping these chemicals out of our food system, or at minimum to lower levels.
As it emerged from this article, plastic is all around us, from the water we drink to the food we eat, making it nearly impossible to avoid it altogether. And yet, being aware about the issue and making small steps to reduce our exposure to plastic can make a big impact.
You might also like: Are Microplastics Harmful And How Can We Avoid Them?
