Cracking up: Microplastics fling from packs during opening, study finds
23 Mar 2020 --- Opening plastic packages can catapult up to 75,000 microplastics across 3 meters, a new study funded by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment (CRC CARE) has found. The research team found evidence that tearing open chocolate bags, cutting sealing tapes and twist-opening bottle caps generates microplastics from broken junction and cap abrasion.
Microplastics are plastic fragments, fibers, debris or particles in the range of 1 µm to 5 mm. To date, microplastic contamination has already been confirmed in seafood, honey, sugar, sea salt, tap water and beer. As plastics continue to be found in various bodies of water, land or air, it is estimated that they could accumulate to up to 265 million tons by 2060. Moreover, 13 percent of this weight could be microplastics, the study reads.
The researchers concluded that the number of microplastics generated varied between scissoring, tearing and cutting, depending on stiffness, thickness, anisotropy and density. Although all three opening methods inevitably generated microplastics – and even some plastic pieces visible to the naked eye – “how microplastics enter our body is not entirely clear,” the study states. Currently, the researchers suggest that having entered the body through ingestion or inhalation, microplastics can potentially cause a localized immune response.
Upon opening, the plastic packaging released a plethora of microplalstics.Concerns about human microplastic contamination occurred when 11 leading beverage brands were found to contain microplastics in their bottled waters in 2018. The World Health Organization (WHO) responded with an assessment of microplastics’ influence on the environment and found that the impact on human health appeared to be “minimal at current levels.” Industry welcomed the review as a starting point in gaining a greater understanding of the effects of microplastics in drinking water and the potential human health implications.
Shortly after, a Plastic Health Summit held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, last October brought together plastic experts to highlight the current lack of scientific knowledge around the chemicals used in plastics as well as their health implications.
This month, the European Commission (EC) adopted a new Circular Economy Action Plan in which it will address the presence of microplastics in the environment by developing labeling, standardization, certification and regulatory measures on the unintentional release of microplastics. While tipping its hat to the EC for centralizing efforts in this area, lobbyist Rethink Plastics Alliance states that it is “regretful” that the action plan remains, in essence, vague on its measures, which it sees as “going no further than the Plastics Strategy of early 2018.”
By Anni Schleicher
