In late 2020, research by the World Wildlife Federation International estimated that the average person consumes about 5 grams of plastic every week, which is about the weight of a credit card.17
Over time, that really adds up. According to the WWF’s calculations,18 each month, you consume about 21 grams, or the equivalent of one Lego brick. In a year’s time, you’ve consumed 250 grams, or the size of a full dinner plate’s-worth of plastic.
In 10 years, you’ve ingested some 5.5 pounds, and in the average lifetime, a person will consume about 40 pounds. While much of this will pass through and be eliminated through your stool, some will remain and accumulate in your organs.
How to Lower Your Microplastic Exposure
Considering much of the microplastic in your body comes from food and water, it would be wise to use a high-quality water filtration system for your home, and opt for organic grass fed and grass finished meats whenever possible.
Avoid any meats or animal products from livestock (or farmed fish) that have been fed feed pellets, as these can contain microplastic from food packaging that have been processed in. Also, try to reduce your plastic consumption and generation of plastic trash in general.
For example, use reusable shopping bags when buying groceries, use your own coffee mug when getting coffee to go, skip the plastic wrap on your dry cleaning, and use a fabric shower curtain instead of a plastic one. This will reduce the amount of plastic ending up in landfills and the ocean.
Bring drinking water from home in glass water bottles instead of buying bottled water, and store foods in glassware or mason jars instead of plastic bags. You can also take your own leftover container to restaurants. Strategies such as these will help to reduce the amount of plastic that can migrate into your food. Definitely never microwave food in plastic containers.
These are just a handful of examples. Plastic is all around us and can be extremely difficult to avoid. But if you start looking around, you may find many areas of your life where you can eliminate the use of plastic and replace the it with something inert that won’t harm the environment and your health.
- 1 Environ Int January 2021, 146: 106274
- 2 Particle and Fibre Toxicology volume 17, Article number: 55 (2020)
- 3 Interesting Engineering July 9, 2022
- 4 Plastic Soup Foundation July 8, 2022
- 5 The Guardian May 1, 2023 (Archived)
- 6 Nanomaterials April 19, 2023; 13(8): 1404
- 7 Interesting Engineering April 25, 2023
- 8, 11 International Journal of Molecular Sciences August 1, 2023; 24(15): 12308
- 9 New York Post August 29, 2023
- 10 International Journal of Molecular Sciences August 1, 2023; 24(15): 12308. Section 3. Discussion
- 12 Science Alert August 20, 2023
- 13 Science of the Total Environment February 10, 2022; 807, Part 2, 150817
- 14 Environmental Science & Technology August 2023; 57(30): 10911-10918
- 15 ACS.org Press Release August 9, 2023
- 16 New York Post August 12, 2023
- 17, 18 New York Post December 8, 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment