Damian Carrington Environment editor
Mon 17 Aug 2020 12.07 EDT
Microplastic and nanoplastic particles are now discoverable in human organs thanks to a new technique.
Microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from Arctic snow and Alpine soils to the deepest oceans. People are also known to consume them via food and water, and to breathe them in, but the potential impact on human health is not yet known.
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“It would be naive to believe there is plastic everywhere but just not in us,” said Rolf Halden at Arizona State University. “We are now providing a research platform that will allow us and others to look for what is invisible – these particles too small for the naked eye to see. The risk [to health] really resides in the small particles.”
The analytical method developed allows the researchers to identify dozens of types of plastic, including the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used in plastic drinks bottles and the polyethylene used in plastic bags.
They found bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used to make plastics, in all 47 samples. The US Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about BPA because “it is a reproductive, developmental and systemic toxicant in animal studies”. The researchers examined lung, liver, spleen and kidney tissue as these organs are likely to be exposed to microplastics or collect them.
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Microplastics are those less than 5mm in diameter and nanoplastics have a diameter of less than 0.001mm. Both form largely from the abrasion of larger pieces of plastic dumped into the environment. Research in wildlife and laboratory animals has linked exposure to tiny plastics to infertility, inflammation and cancer.
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Previous studies have shown people eat and breathe in at least 50,000 particles of microplastic a year and that microplastic pollution is raining down on city dwellers, with London, UK, having the highest level of four cities analysed last year. The particles can harbour toxic chemicals and harmful microbes and are known to harm some marine creatures.
Other work has shown different kinds of nanoparticles from air pollution are present in human hearts and brains, and have been linked to brain cancer.
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