More than 100 tiny plastics in every meal from household dust

New research shows that we could be swallowing more than 100 tiny plastic particles with every main meal. The plastic, which can come from soft furnishings and synthetic fabrics, gets into household dust which falls on plates and is consumed. The researchers then compared plastic fibres found in mussels with the amount in the average household meal. They found fewer than two microplastics in each mussel, which could be linked to the marine environment, and concluded that the average person can expect to consume 100 plastic particles a year through eating the shellfish. An article about the research is published in Environmental Pollution (News Item Heriot-Watt University, 3 April 2018).
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Click here for an abstract of the published article.
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