Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits, Study Finds

[OKIsItJustMe]

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2024/01/08/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-of-thousands-of-previously-uncounted-tiny-plastic-bits-study-finds/

Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits, Study Finds
A New Microscopic Technique Zeroes in on the Poorly Explored World of Nanoplastics, Which Can Pass Into Blood, Cells and Your Brain

BY KEVIN KRAJICK |JANUARY 8, 2024

In recent years, there has been rising concern that tiny particles known as microplastics are showing up basically everywhere on Earth, from polar ice to soil, drinking water and food. Formed when plastics break down into progressively smaller bits, these particles are being consumed by humans and other creatures, with unknown potential health and ecosystem effects. One big focus of research: bottled water, which has been shown to contain tens of thousands of identifiable fragments in each container.

Now, using newly refined technology, researchers have entered a whole new plastic world: the poorly known realm of nanoplastics, the spawn of microplastics that have broken down even further. For the first time, they counted and identified these minute particles in bottled water. They found that on average, a liter contained some 240,000 detectable plastic fragments—10 to 100 times greater than previous estimates, which were based mainly on larger sizes.

The study was just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Nanoplastics are so tiny that, unlike microplastics, they can pass through intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream and travel from there to organs including the heart and brain. They can invade individual cells, and cross through the placenta to the bodies of unborn babies. Medical scientists are racing to study the possible effects on a wide variety of biological systems.

…

Nothing to worry about, I’m sure.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I'm going back to gin

in glass bottles

[Polly Hennessey]

2. Add some tonic water (oops) and a lime and I am with you.

[hlthe2b]

3. Commercial filter units can help--remove microplastics as small as 2.5 microns...

I don't buy bottled water, but yet another reason not to.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. A lot of the filter units I encounter are made of plastic, not to mention pipes

This has been something I’ve thought about…

[hlthe2b]

5. There is no way to eliminate all risk, just decrease. But, hopefully small changes can help.

I no longer store or microwave food in plastic and all dishes and storage containers are glass or ceramic. I haven't purchased water or any drink in plastic bottles in many years. And yes, though the filters themselves typically have some plastic components, the charcoal or other filtration material should decrease how much gets into your glass or bowl.

But, if you remember the scene in the old movie, "The Graduate" with Dustin Hoffman, we were warned. It is all about the "plastics." sigh...

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. I don't cook in plastics. Even before "microplastics" became a concern.

I used to take “Jr High”/“Middle School” students out into the woods and teach them camping skills. Their counselors had learned somewhere that you could cook in "#10 cans.” I’d put an empty can on the fire, so the plastic lining would burn, and ask, "Do you really want that in your food?”

Virtually every sort of plastic container (including “BPA-Free”) leaches chemicals with estrogenic activity:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/

…
Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.
…

Even so-called "food-safe" plastic, intended for use in a microwave oven “outgasses.”
https://doi.org/10.1080/19440049.2012.751631

Migration of antimony from PET trays into food simulant and food: determination of Arrhenius parameters and comparison of predicted and measured migration data
…

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. These are smaller than a micron - down to about a tenth of a micron (nt)

[hlthe2b]

7. Indeed, but these have been shown to help and finer filters are out there albeit $$$$

The finest particles can be breathed in regardless or absorbed into the bloodstream from the intestinal tract (diameter range: 500 nm to 5 µm). But, to decrease ingestion, the water filters can help on a macro level. There is no solution for the larger problem, including inhalation.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. I heard a helpful analogy regarding masks and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19)

A number of people have pointed out that the virus is physically smaller than the pores in a mask.

The analogy this researcher made was to a person in the woods. It is more difficult to run through the woods without hitting a tree than it is to walk slowly through the woods. Breathing through a mask, even though the virus is smaller than the spaces between the fibers, the majority of virus particles are snared by the fibers of the mask (even a "surgical mask.”)