Bone Chilling Study Reveals 2,40,000 Plastic Parts in Just 1 Litre Water Bottle

Approximately 240,000 plastic pieces are included in an ordinary one-liter (33-ounce) bottle of water, as per a recent research. The researchers concluded that a significant portion of those fragments have previously gone unreported, indicating that health risks associated with plastic pollution may be greatly overstated. 

The first study of its kind to assess bottled water for the presence of “nanoplastics”—plastic particles smaller than one micrometer, or one-seventieth the breadth of a human hair—was peer-reviewed and published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Since prior research only took into account microplastics, or particles between 1 and 5,000 micrometers, the results indicate that bottled water may contain up to 100 times more plastic particles than previously thought.

Data-Driven Algo Drove Emboldened Belief: 

The co-authors of the study overcame this difficulty by developing a novel microscopy method, developing a data-driven algorithm, and utilizing both to examine about twenty-five one-liter water bottles that were bought from three well-known US companies. (The brands were not disclosed by the researchers.) Ninety percent of the microscopic plastic particles, ranging from 110,000 to 370,000, were discovered in each liter. 

Naixin Qian, lead mind behind the study reiterates, “This study provides a powerful tool to address the challenges in analyzing nanoplastics, which holds the promise to bridge the current knowledge gap on plastic pollution at the nano level.” 

He is a graduate student of Columbia University in chemistry.

“Previously this was just a dark area, uncharted. Toxicity studies were just guessing what’s in there,” adds Beizhan Yan, who collaborated for the study at Columbia University. He is an environmental chemist at the same place. 

“This opens a window where we can look into a world that was not exposed to us before.”  

7 Plastic Kinds Caught Researchers’ Focus:

The seven major plastic kinds that the researchers focused on were polyamide, which is frequently used in filters to purify water before it is bottled, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used to make many water bottles. However, scientists also found a large number of unknown nanoparticles in the water. There may be far more plastic in bottled water if some of those are also nanoplastics.

Over 450 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide annually, most of which is disposed away in landfills. Most plastics eventually break down into smaller bits rather than decomposing naturally. Additionally, while plastic-containing products—many synthetic fabrics included—are being used, tiny pieces of plastic are frequently lost. 

Although plastic pollution is a global problem, scientists are particularly interested in bottled water due to its potential to introduce plastic particles into human bodies. According to a 2022 study, tap water has a lower concentration of microplastics than bottled water. A 2021 report issued a warning, stating that merely opening and shutting the cap on a plastic water bottle can cause small plastic particles to be released into the drink. 

According to the recent study’s co-authors, their investigation will not end with bottled water. Additionally, they intend to look into nanoplastics in snow samples taken from western Antarctica and tap water.

Another co-author, Wei Min, shared, “There is a huge world of nanoplastics to be studied.” He is a biophysics at the similar esteem University. “The smaller things are, the more easily they can get inside us.”