[ Clearly, micro- and nanoplastics are getting into us, with at
least some escaping through our digestive tracts. We seem to be
drinking, eating, and breathing it in.]
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NANOPLASTICS ARE ENTERING OUR BODIES  
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Erica Cirino
July 14, 2023
The Bullet
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_ Clearly, micro- and nanoplastics are getting into us, with at least
some escaping through our digestive tracts. We seem to be drinking,
eating, and breathing it in. _

,

 

The air is plasticized, and we are no better protected from it
outdoors than indoors. Minuscule plastic fibers, fragments, foam, and
films are shed from plastic stuff and are perpetually floating into
and free-falling down on us from the atmosphere. Rain flushes micro-
and nanoplastics out of the sky back to Earth. Plastic-filled snow is
accumulating in urban areas like Bremen, Germany, and remote regions
like the Arctic and Swiss Alps
[[link removed]].

Wind and storms carry particles shed from plastic items and debris
through the air for dozens, even hundreds, of miles before depositing
them back on Earth. Dongguan, Paris, London, and other metropolises
around the world are enveloped in air that is perpetually permeated by
tiny plastic particles
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small enough to lodge themselves in human lungs.

Toxic Tires

Urban regions are especially full of what scientists believe is one of
the most hazardous particulate pollution varieties: synthetic tire
debris. As a result of the normal friction caused by brake pads and
asphalt roads, and of weathering and wear, these tires shed plastic
fragments, metals, and other toxic materials. Like the plastic used to
manufacture consumer items and packaging, synthetic tires contain a
manufacturer’s proprietary blend of poisons meant to improve a
plastic product’s appearance and performance.

Tire particles from the billions of cars, trucks, bikes, tractors, and
other vehicles moving across the world escape into air, soil, and
water bodies. Scientists are just beginning to understand the grave
danger. In 2020, researchers in Washington State determined that the
presence of 6PPD-quinone [[link removed]], a
byproduct of rubber-stabilizing chemical 6PPD, was playing a major
factor in a mysterious long-term die-off of coho salmon in the US
Pacific Northwest
[[link removed]]. When
Washington’s fall rains heralded spawning salmon’s return from sea
to stream, the precipitation also washed car tire fragments and other
plastic particles into these freshwater ecosystems.

Up to 90 percent of all coho salmon
[[link removed]]
returning to spawn in this region have died – much greater than is
considered natural. As the study’s lead author, environmental
chemist Zhenyu Tian, explained in a 2020 interview with Oregon Public
Broadcasting, 6PPD-quinone appears to be a key culprit: “You put
this chemical, this transformation product, into a fish tank, and coho
die… really fast.”

Microplastic Inside Human Airways

While other researchers had previously searched for, and detected,
microplastic dispersed in indoor and outdoor air, Alvise Vianello, an
Italian scientist and associate professor at Aalborg University in
Denmark, was the first to do so using
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a mannequin emulating human breathing via a mechanical lung system,
publishing his study’s results
[[link removed]] in
2019. (Despite the evidence his research provides – that plastic is
getting inside of human bodies and could be harming us – it was not
until 2022 that modern health researchers first confirmed the presence
of microplastics in human lungs
[[link removed]].
And as comprehensive health research has ramped up, we are just
beginning to understand how having plastic particles around us and in
us at all times might be affecting human health.)

Vianello and his colleague Jes Vollertsen, a professor of
environmental studies at Aalborg University, explained that they’ve
brought their findings to researchers at their university’s hospital
for future collaborative research, perhaps searching for plastic
inside human cadavers. “We now have enough evidence that we should
start looking for microplastic inside human airways,” Vollertsen
said
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“Until then, it’s unclear whether or not we should be worried that
we are breathing in plastic.”

When I met Vollertsen in 2019, he had speculated that some of the
microplastic we breathe in could be expelled when we exhale. Yet, even
if that’s true, our lungs are indeed holding onto some of the
plastic that enters, potentially resulting in damage.

Other researchers, like Joana Correia Prata, DVM, PhD, who studied
microplastics
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at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, have highlighted the need for
systematic research on the human health effects of breathing in
microplastic
[[link removed]].
“[Microplastic] particles and fibers, depending on their density,
size, and shape, can reach the deep lung causing chronic
inflammation,” she said
[[link removed]].
Prata noted that people working in environments with high levels of
airborne microplastics, such as those employed in the textile
industry, often suffer respiratory problems. The perpetual presence of
a comparatively lower amount of microplastics in our homes has not yet
been linked to specific ailments.

While they’ve dissected the bodies of countless nonhuman animals
since the 1970s
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only began exploring human tissues for signs of nano- and microplastic
in earnest during the late 2010s and early 2020s. This, despite strong
evidence suggesting plastic particles – and the toxins that adhere
to them – permeate our environment
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and are widespread in our diets. From 2010 to 2020, scientists have
detected
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microplastic in the bodies of fish and shellfish as well as in
packaged meats, processed foods, beer, sea salt, soft drinks, tap
water, and bottled water. There are tiny plastic particles embedded in
conventionally grown fruits and vegetables
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and food stalls.

Petrochemical-Based Plastics, Fertilizers, and Pesticides

As the world rapidly ramped up its production of plastic in the 1950s
and ’60s, two other booms occurred simultaneously: that of the
world’s human population and the continued development of industrial
agriculture. The latter would feed the former and was made possible
thanks to the development of petrochemical-based plastics,
fertilizers, and pesticides.

By the late 1950s, farmers struggling to keep up with feeding the
world’s growing population welcomed new research papers and
bulletins published by agricultural scientists extolling the benefits
of using plastic – specifically dark-colored, low-density
polyethylene sheets – to boost the yields of growing crops.

Scientists laid out step-by-step instructions on how the plastic
sheets should be rolled out over crops to retain water, reducing the
need for irrigation, and to control weeds and insects, which
couldn’t as easily penetrate plastic-wrapped soil.

This “plasticulture” has become a standard farming practice,
transforming the soils humans have long sown from something familiar
to something unknown. Crops grown with plastic seem to offer higher
yields in the short term, while in the long term, use of plastic in
agriculture could create toxic soils that repel water instead of
absorbing it [[link removed]], a
potentially catastrophic problem. This presence of plastic particles
in the soil causes increased erosion and dust – as well as the
dissolution of ancient symbiotic relationships
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microbes, insects, and fungi that help keep plants – and our planet
– alive.

From the polluted soils we’ve created, plants pull in tiny
nanoplastic particles through their roots along with the water they
need to survive, with serious consequences: an accumulation of
nanoplastic particles in a plant’s roots diminishes its ability to
absorb water, impairing growth and development. Scientists have also
found evidence that nanoplastic may alter a plant’s genetic makeup
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increasing its disease susceptibility.

Plastic: Part of the Human Diet

Based on the levels of micro- and nanoplastics detected in human
diets, it’s estimated that most people unwittingly ingest anywhere
from 39,000 to 52,000 bits of microplastic
[[link removed]] in their diets each
year. That number increases by 90,000 microplastic particles for
people who regularly consume bottled water, and by 4,000 particles for
those who drink water from municipal taps.

In 2018, scientists in Austria detected microplastic in human stool
samples [[link removed]]
collected from eight volunteers from eight different countries across
Europe and Asia. By 2023, scientists had detected the presence of
plastic particles in people’s lungs
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bloodstreams
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veins
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placentas [[link removed]], feces
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testes/semen
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and breast milk [[link removed]]. And while
the long-term health impacts of plastic on the human body are still
unknown, it is well understood that plastic has toxic effects on
laboratory animals
[[link removed]], marine
wildlife
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and human cell lines
[[link removed]].

In a 2022 study
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researchers showed that nanoplastics less than 100 nanometers wide can
enter the blood and organs of animals and cause inflammation,
toxicity, and changes in neurological function.

Clearly, micro- and nanoplastics are getting into us, with at least
some escaping through our digestive tracts. We seem to be drinking,
eating, and breathing it in.

And these tiny particles are just one component of plastic’s myriad
forms of pollution
[[link removed]].
From the moment plastic’s fossil fuel ingredients are extracted, to
its production, transportation, use, and eventual disposal in
landfills, incinerators, and the environment, the plastics pipeline
emits toxic chemicals that pollute Earth’s air, soils, waters, seas,
animals, plants, and human bodies, and releases greenhouse gases that
drive the climate crisis. Most often harmed are already underserved
groups, including Black, Brown, Indigenous, rural, poor, and fenceline
communities everywhere, driving severe injustice worldwide. •

This adapted excerpt is from Thicker Than Water: The Quest for
Solutions to the Plastic Crisis
[[link removed]], by Erica Cirino
(Island Press, 2021). Reproduced with permission from Island Press.
This adaptation was produced for the web by Earth | Food | Life
[[link removed]], a project of
the Independent Media Institute.

For more information, see Environmental Defence
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website.

Erica Cirino is a contributor to the Observatory and a science writer
and artist who explores the intersection of the human and nonhuman
worlds.

* plastics
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* environment
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