The Scourge of Microplastics

[Watchman]

• Microplastic contamination is a monumental environmental and health issue with serious consequences.

• Micro and nanoplastics have found their way into just about every nook and cranny on land, sea, air, human and animal bodies. It's in our food and the water we drink, particularly bottled water.

• It's now being implicated in a wide-range of human disease processes from cancer to heart disease and neurological conditions.

• There's little we can do to avoid it, but plenty we can do to minimise our exposure.

One of the most versatile, well used and persistent substances that exists on earth, it generally isn’t biodegradable. As it breaks down in the environment it gets smaller and smaller until it infiltrates just about everything in the form of micro- and nano-sized particles. They’re everywhere. In the air, water, seas, human bodies, dust, food, plants and animals. Finally, the subject of microplastics is hitting the headlines as awareness of the problem escalates.

Even water is packaged in plastic bottles. With billions of bottles of water produced and sold globally every year as people that can afford it, try and escape chlorine-, hormone-, and too often, fluoride-laden tap water. Globally consumption of bottled water is expected to reach 515 billion litres a year by 2027. But, is bottled water as safe as we think it is? A 2018 study found microplastics in 93% of the bottled water tested. Researchers recently reported the presence of around 240,000 tiny pieces of microplastics in a 1 litre bottle of water. This is 10 to 100 times more than previous studies, which focused on larger particles of plastic. Particles of seven of the most commonly used plastics were found along with millions of other particles of unknown origin. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE