OdishaPlus Bureau
Every time you sit down to eat, micro-plastics float in the air and land on your food, invisibly becoming a part of your stir fry or pasta e fagioli. Over the course of a meal, you’re most likely consuming around 100 bits of micro-plastic and, over the course of a year, closer to 70,000 pieces. So along with fat, protein, and carbohydrates, your body is also getting a steady dose of plastic waste.
That’s the conclusion reached by a team of UK-based researchers in a new report published in ‘Environmental Pollution.’
Plastic contamination is so widespread in the environment that you may be ingesting five grams a week. This is equivalent to eating a credit card, a study commissioned by the environmental charity WWF International said on Wednesday.
Credit Card
The study by Australia’s University of Newcastle said the largest source of plastic ingestion is drinking water. But another major source is shellfish, which people consume in one piece .The plastic in their digestive system is consumed too.
“Since 2000, the world has produced as much plastic as all the preceding years combined, a third of which is leaked into nature,” the report said. The average person could be consuming 1,769 particles of plastic every week from water alone, the report said.
Plastic contamination is so widespread in the environment that you may be ingesting five grams a week. This is equivalent to eating a credit card, a study commissioned by the environmental Charity WWF International said on Wednesday.
Between 1950 and 2015, an estimated 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic were created, the equivalent of 1 billion elephants, according to a new report published in Science Advances. If current trends continue, 12 billion metric tons of plastic waste will exist in the world by 2050.
Human Health
Plastic affects human health. Toxic chemicals leach out of plastic and are found in the blood and tissue of nearly all of us. Exposure to them is linked to cancers, birth defects, impaired immunity, endocrine disruption and other ailment.