It feels like every few weeks i see an article about microplastics being in the human body. As i understand plastics are inert so why do we expect them to be any more harmful than normal dust?
In: Biology
Microplastics are concerning because of their pervasiveness. We’ve done enough research to demonstrate that there is a HIGH concentration of microplastics in our bodies, water, and environment. The high concentration of microplastics found are related to our societal reliance on plastics, as well as the fact that plastics don’t degrade – they just break down into smaller and smaller plastic particles (nanoplastics). While the exact health effects from microplastics in our bodies are still being researched, it would make sense that it would not be good to have tons of tiny particles building up in our bodies (there are already some works suggesting that). Beyond that, recent research has indicated that microplastics can be messengers for other contaminants, because some plastic types have a high affinity for adsorbing toxic substances in the environment.
Latest Answers