Manufacturing News—Microplastics: In Our Air, Soil, Food, Water—and Bodies
Microplastics have been found in live human lungs and is everywhere in our environment.
Recent research from the UK and California shows disturbing results: microplastics—other than just fibers from clothes—were found in human lungs in the UK study, and in human stool and placenta samples, according to the California research. Microplastics are defined as any plastic particles ranging in size from 5 mm and smaller—down to 1 µm (1 micron).
While the route of microplastics particles infection for the lungs is airborne, the routes of infection in other parts of the body are less well known, but the California study suggests these sources could be in food (especially fish and seafood) and drinking water. However, the effects of microplastics in the human body are largely not well understood (although inflammation is one possibility), but are generally accepted to be deleterious as are the chemical constituents found in most plastics.