The average liter of bottled water has nearly a quarter million invisible pieces of ever so tiny nanoplastics, detected and categorized for the first time by a microscope using dual lasers.
Scientists long figured there were lots of these microscopic plastic pieces, but until researchers at Columbia and Rutgers universities did their calculations they never knew how many or what kind. Looking at five samples each of three common bottled water brands, researchers found particle levels ranged from 110,000 to 400,000 per liter, averaging at around 240,000 according to a study in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
These are particles that are less than a micron in size. There are 25,400 microns — also called micrometers because it is a millionth of a meter — in an inch. A human hair is about 83 microns wide.
Previous studies have looked at slightly bigger microplastics that range from the visible 5 millimeters, less than a quarter of an inch, to one micron. About 10 to 100 times more nanoplastics than microplastics were discovered in bottled water, the study found.
I guarantee you that a lot of that plastic was in the water before it ever touched a plastic bottle. You are eating a credit card worth of plastic a week, it has already permeated into every tissue in your body, and are even in your unborn fetus. . This is leaded gasoline all over again in that it is absolutely everywhere, everyone is filled with it, and we aren’t sure what the long term affects are going to be
I’m guessing the request was to use reusable bottles instead of single-use bottles, particularly given the fairly recent knowledge that plastic recycling is a scam