One water bottle can contain 240,000 tiny plastic pieces. Here's what to do if you're worried.
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- Water sold in the US was found to contain 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic on average in a study.
- Nanoplastics are so small that they can enter the bloodstream, cells, and organs.
- More research is needed to assess the potential health risks but there are ways to reduce exposure.
A liter of bottled water can contain 240,000 pieces of plastic on average, some of which are so tiny they can enter the bloodstream, individual cells, and organs including the heart and brain, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 8, found up to 100 times more plastic particles in bottled water than was previously documented, thanks to a tool that uses lasers to analyze the chemical composition of samples.
These tiny bits of broken-down plastic, known as micro and nano plastics, have been found in oceans, atop the summit of Mount Everest, and in the bloodstream of humans in recent years.
Microplastics range in size from five millimeters to one micrometer, which is one-millionth of a meter. For reference, a human hair is about 70 micrometers across. Nanoplastics are even smaller, measuring less than one micrometer. They are measured in nanometers or billionths of a meter.
3 popular water brands were found to contain hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic pieces
The researchers tested three popular brands of bottled water sold in the US, which they decided not to name, analyzing plastic particles down to 100 nanometers in size. They found between 110,000 to 370,000 plastic particles in each liter, and 240,000 on average. 90% were nanoplastics, while the rest were microplastics.
"The new tool refined in this study basically opens a new window for us to uncover the invisible nanoplastic world," Beizhan Yan, study coauthor and an environmental chemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Business Insider in an email.
The potential health risks plastic particles could pose are unknown, but as experts rush to find out more, they recommend cutting plastic use where possible in the meantime. It is feared they could bring toxins and synthetic materials into the body, causing inflammation and other issues in the vascular, endocrine, and reproductive systems, among others.
"If there were acute effects of plastic particles, we would've seen it already happening. It's the fact that we are lifelong exposed to these particles, and so we have the potential to build them up in our body to levels that may exceed the threshold for certain diseases," professor Dick Vethaak, emeritus professor of water quality and health at VU University Amsterdam and Utrecht University, The Netherlands, told BI.
How to reduce exposure to plastic particles
As it stands, there is a nanoplastic knowledge gap. However, it's widely accepted that nanoplastics are more hazardous than microplastics because their size means they can easily infiltrate the body, and they have a larger surface-to-volume ratio, which means there's more space to absorb contaminants and carry them into the body, Vethaak said.
He said people should be aware of micro and nanoplastics and take measures to reduce their plastic use. Vethaak shared three ways to avoid plastic particle exposure:
Avoid food and drink packaged in single-use plastic. It's better to drink out of a glass container.
Never heat anything up in a plastic container. When plastic is heated, it can release loads of particles.
Keep your house well-ventilated as micro and nanoplastics can be present in the air and dust.
The authors of the study said that if people are concerned about nanoplastics in bottled water, they could consider alternatives such as tap water.
But they don't advise against drinking bottled when necessary as the risk of dehydration may outweigh the potential impacts of nanoplastic exposure.