The Plastic Paradox
Can’t live without plastic in our lives … but can we live with it in our bodies?
Everything Everywhere All at Once is not just a movie title. It’s probably the best description of the prevalence of plastic in modern times.
Look around. Unless you’re reading this sitting naked in a cave, you’re surrounded by it. In fact, just about everything in your daily life, including furniture, carpets, electronics, kitchenware, your clothes, your shoes, and even your toothpaste, makeup, and lotions contain some amount of plastic. Often a lot of it.
We make it. We use it. We throw it away. Unfortunately, we have no idea how to permanently get rid of it because plastic is forever. It doesn’t biodegrade. Instead, it just breaks down into miniscule fragments, small enough to become part of our food, water, and air supply. In other words, we eat, drink, and inhale plastic every day.
So it probably shouldn’t come as a shock to learn that emerging research has found yet another place where plastics have taken up residence: our own bodies.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Too melodramatic? Perhaps. But hundreds of scientific studies have validated that plastics have already invaded human bodies, in the form of microplastics.
As the name implies, microplastics are minute fragments measuring less than 0.2 inch (5 mm) down to 1/25,000th of an inch. Pieces smaller than that are called nanoplastics, a subset of microplastics. They consist of microscopic fragments that average 1/1,000th of the width of a human hair or less.
Due to their miniscule size, nanoplastics can migrate through plant roots, into leaves, fruits, and seeds, thereby entering our food chain. They also can penetrate the tissues of the digestive tract and lungs of animals, including humans, and enter the bloodstream. That makes nanoplastics the most troublesome type of plastic pollution for human health.
Through a myriad of studies, evidence of microplastics has been found in 60 to 80 percent of human tissues and fluids, including blood, semen, breast milk, testes, lung and intestinal tissue, heart muscles, placentas, and even fetuses and newborns.
The most recent, cutting-edge research on the accumulation of microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) in our bodies has been conducted by Matthew Campen, PhD, of the University of New Mexico. His studies, published in February’s Nature Medicine, sent shockwaves through the scientific community.
Campen found that there are surprisingly high quantities of MNPs in the human brain as compared to other organs. And the amount has increased dramatically as human brain samples from 2024 had nearly 50 percent more MNPs than brain samples from 2016. Also, brains from individuals with dementia had far more MNPs than normal brains.
Next time someone asks you, “What’s on your mind?” you can honestly answer, “Plastic. Literally!” Humans now average around seven grams of plastic per brain, according to Campen, or about as much as what makes up a plastic spoon or five water bottle caps!
Tahoe Trouble
In case you think we’re pretty sheltered and safe in our relatively small, high-desert community, think again.
Water samples from Lake Tahoe were compared with lakes located in 23 different countries, in six continents around the world. Shockingly, our beautiful, crystal-clear Lake Tahoe had the third highest concentration of microplastics out of the 38 lakes sampled worldwide, and it tested higher than surface water around the notorious ocean islands of floating plastic garbage!
“The results are remarkable because they show the extent of plastic concentrations in freshwater systems, even in remote and highly protected areas,” says Sudeep Chandra, PhD, director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, who assisted in the research.
Further studies are being conducted by the Microplastics Research Team, led by Monica Arienzo, PhD, associate research professor of hydrology at Reno’s Desert Research Institute. The team’s focus has been testing for MNPs in sources that fill the lake (rain and snowpack) as well as the water that leaves the lake.
“Lake Tahoe is the main resource for the Tahoe Basin,” Arienzo says. “It feeds into the Truckee River and from there becomes our main source of drinking water and agricultural water. It feeds our plants. It’s what we eat and what we drink.”
Preliminary results have confirmed the presence of microplastics in every location sampled in the Truckee River, Arienzo says. Obviously, results of this ongoing research will be vital to those of us living in the Tahoe watershed.
Cause for Caution
Many plastics leach harmful chemicals, such as phthalates, which have been known to cause a variety of health issues, including cancer, diabetes, hormone disruption, and reproductive disorders. More recent studies now appear to link ingested phthalates to significant physical ailments and fatalities, such as heart attacks and strokes.
According to Consumer Reports, MNPs containing phthalates now have been found to be in almost every food tested, often at high levels. This was also true for organic foods as well as vegetarian products. Other independent studies have indicated that MNPs have been found in 90 percent of animal and vegetable protein samples tested.
There are still many questions as to how MNPs may cause human maladies and to what degree. But the real question is: How much are you willing to gamble on your health?
What we do know is that many MNPs get into our bodies by ingestion. It also seems the environmental circumstances that put MNPs into our food and water are out of our direct control. But don’t despair. There’s still much that is within our control.
Lots of the plastic we consume is not already in the meat and vegetables. We put it there through the methods with which we handle, store, and cook that food when it’s in our possession. What you may not realize is that plastics shed. What do they shed? MNPs — a lot of them. And the more your body interacts with these MNPs, the more it absorbs them.
Control What You Can
According to industry estimates, about 500 million tons of plastic are produced annually worldwide. That averages out to about 125 pounds of plastic for each of the roughly 8 billion people on earth. If even a fraction of those billions of people eliminated half the plastic they use, imagine what a difference that could make. So begin by making a commitment to reduce your personal 125 pounds of annual plastic use. It’s better for the Earth. It’s better for your personal health.
The easiest and best place to start is by reducing single-use plastics in your life. More than 40 percent of all plastics manufactured today are single-use items and packaging. The key here is to keep your food and beverages as far away from touching plastic as possible. Here’s some ideas to get you started:
- Switch to a reusable water bottle, preferably made of glass or stainless steel. A 1-liter plastic water bottle leaches from 110,000 to 370,000 MNPs into the water that you drink. Tap water is cheaper and has far fewer MNPs.
- Invest in a stainless-steel or ceramic travel mug for your en route morning coffee. Paper cups for hot beverages are lined with plastic that releases oodles of MNPs into hot coffee or tea, to the tune of 25,000 MNPs per 1 cup of hot water in 15 minutes.
- Buy cold beverages in glass bottles or aluminum cans. They’re better, safer, and more recyclable.
- Bring your own reusable bags for your groceries, including loose vegetables, fruit, and bulk bin items. There are lots of inexpensive, endlessly reusable cloth or mesh options available online.
- Use glass, ceramic, or enamel containers or foil to store your fresh food and leftovers. If the container has a plastic lid, make sure the food doesn’t touch it and remove it before microwaving.
- Never microwave food in plastic! Heat increases the shedding of MNPs big time! Use only glass, enamel, ceramic, or food-grade silicone for that.
- Do NOT reheat your restaurant food in their take-home containers. Instead, place them in microwaveable glassware or reheat them on the stove. Bring your own nonplastic containers for your restaurant leftovers.
- All plastic dishes, cups, containers, lids, and utensils for cooking and eating utensils should be washed by hand, not in the dishwasher. The high washing-and-drying heat will degrade the plastic further and release lots of MNPs.
- Avoid using plastic wrap for anything. The same goes for plastic sandwich and storage bags. Safer alternatives include foil, beeswax wraps, food-grade silicone bags, and the previously recommended containers.
- Children’s plastic dinnerware and cups can all safely be replaced with stainless steel. For school lunches, you can find cute bento boxes online that are totally plastic free.
- Replace plastic cooking utensils with stainless steel, bamboo, wood, or food-grade silicone.
- Swap your nonstick pots and pans for safe cookware. Cast-iron, stainless-steel, enamel, and ceramic cookware are great, durable, toxin-free options.
- Buy clothes made of natural fabrics such as cotton and wool, and wash all clothes less frequently. Every trip to the washer and dryer releases more MNPs into the air and water.
- Finally, when you’re outdoors, leave only footprints behind!
Nobody says you have to do all of these suggestions at once, or ever. Pick and choose what works for you. Some you can do right away. Some you will need to slowly phase into your life. Some may never work for you at all. Just remember there’s a lot of plastic out there, and even if we stop making it tomorrow, there will still be tons for eons to come.
“We’re not going to be able to recycle our way out of this,” Arienzo says. “We have to turn off that [plastics] tap. At the end of the day, that’s the big thing.”
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