Oh, yuck! You're eating about a credit card's worth of plastic every week
When researchers studied people from different parts of the world, they found microplastics in the stool of every person they tested. USA TODAY
You're eating, swallowing or breathing in about 2,000 tiny pieces of plastic each week, a new study suggests, an amount equal to the weight of one credit card.
"Not only are plastics polluting our oceans and waterways and killing marine life – it’s in all of us and we can’t escape consuming plastics," said Marco Lambertini of the World Wildlife Fund, which commissioned the study.
This plastic contamination comes from "microplastics" – particles smaller than five millimeters – which are making their way into our food, drinking water and even the air, CNN said.
The study was carried out by the University of Newcastle in Australia. "While the awareness of microplastics and their impact on the environment is increasing, this study has helped to provide an accurate calculation of ingestion rates for the first time," said Thava Palanisami, the project co-lead and microplastics researcher at the University of Newcastle.
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According to the study, most of the pieces of plastic we ingest come from drinking water, but it's also in other foods such as shellfish and salt. And also, sadly, beer.
The long-term effects of plastic ingestion on the human body are not yet well documented, the study said, but studies are underway to better understand the effects of plastic on our health.
Richard Lampitt of the United Kingdom's National Oceanography Center, who was not involved in the research, told CNN that it was difficult to assess the significance of ingestion rates without understanding the associated health risks. "There is very large uncertainty about the harms that plastics do," he said.
Regardless of the specific health risks, plastic pollution continues to be a growing problem worldwide, and it shows no signs of slowing down: In fact, half of all the plastic produced between 1950 and 2016 has occurred since 2000, the study said. “These findings must serve as a wake-up call to governments," Lambertini said. "Global action is urgent and essential to tackling this crisis."
The study, which did not appear in a peer-reviewed science journal, is titled "No Plastic in Nature: Assessing Plastic Ingestion from Nature to People."