Microplastics. Add one more to the list of 318,645 existential threats.
One study found that people inhale or ingest on average 74,000 to 121,000 microplastic particles per year through breathing, eating and drinking.
“There’s just so much plastic around us,” said Sherri Mason, researcher and sustainability coordinator at Pennsylvania State University at Erie. “We wear synthetic clothes, and those are shedding microplastics. We work on synthetic carpets. We buy food wrapped in plastic.”
Scientists don’t yet know the exact health effects of all those plastic particles — but their concerns are rising. In recent years, research has shown for the first time that humans are breathing, eating and drinking microplastics in much larger quantities than previously thought. And that plastic is burrowing its way into almost every major organ.
Not only can those tiny particles infiltrate many parts of the body, causing inflammation, but plastics also have a laundry list of chemical additives: flame retardants, lubricants, solvents. These chemicals, in turn, can leach out of particles that have reached some of our most vulnerable organs.
https://lnkd.in/ehyntnwm
