Bottled Water and Nanoplastics: New Technological Advancements are Shining a Light on Plastic Pollution in Bottled Water
Intro
In the UK we purchase an estimated 7.7 billion bottles of water every year. Many believe that bottled water is cleaner and healthier than tap water. However, new technological developments have allowed scientists to detect and count miniscule plastic particles called nanoplastics in bottled water, and they have found alarming levels of these particles, which could be harmful for human health.
What are Nanoplastics?
Nanoplastics are tiny particles of plastics 1,000th the width of a human hair. Much previous attention has been paid to the larger and more visible microplastics. However, recent technological advancements have made it easier to detect and analyse nanoplastics, and most evidence suggests that they are pretty much everywhere. Recent studies suggests that nanoplastics can be found throughout the human body, including in our blood, liver and lung cells, the heart, and even breast milk. Because nanoplastics are smaller than microplastics, they are more easily transported over long distances and are found in a wider range of environments. In fact, studies in the last couple of years have detected nanoplastics in seawater, snow, soil, and even the air we breathe.
Nanoplastics in Bottled Water
While nanoplastics seem to be everywhere, concentrations are shockingly high in bottled water. A study published last year by the University of California utilized a cutting edge optical imaging technique, which allowed the researchers to detect and analyse particles which were simply too small to analyse in previous years. The researchers found an average of 240,000 plastic particles per litre of bottled water, with 90% of these particles being nanoplastics. This concentration of nanoplastics is far higher than previous estimates, and compares with just 5.5 plastic particles per litre of tap water.
Conclusions
The concentration of nanoparticles in bottled water is much higher than tap water. These particles pose unique health concerns as they can invade individual cells and tissue in our major organs. We should make sure that where possible we drink only tap water, and use steel and glass bottles instead.
Sources
https://cleanwater.org/2020/07/29/bottled-water-human-health-consequences-drinking-plastic
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c02317
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121