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We "eat" one credit card a week

2024-03-09 13:32:26Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

We "eat" one credit card a week

Whenever there is news about plastic pollution, the question arises spontaneously: how many of the plastic fragments present in the air, food, water and soil manage to penetrate into our bodies? Many, many: providing an exact number in this case is not possible. But maybe yes, 5 grams of microplastics a week, the equivalent of the weight of a credit card.

This already widely reported data comes from a study entitled No Plastic in Nature: Assessing Plastic Ingestion from Nature to People commissioned by WWF at the University of Newcastle (Australia). The analysis suggests that “the average person may eat approximately 5 grams of plastic per week. The equivalent of the weight of a credit card”, and further “the consumption of common foods and drinks can result in a weekly ingestion of approximately 5 grams of plastic, also depending on consumption habits”.

The image of the credit card is a very effective image that gives a good idea of ​​the amount of plastic particles that now contaminate everything. However, a closer re-reading of the document and the sources on which it is based reveals that this is probably an overestimate.

In reality, the same authors of the report commissioned by WWF submitted and then published the data in a scientific journal in 2020. And reading their study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials we find that “the global average rate of ingested microplastics is 0.7 grams per week". In fact, say the researchers, "we estimated that globally, on average, people ingest between 0.1 and 5 grams of microplastic per week through various types of exposure." So the 5 gram figure is there, but it's the upper end of the range offered by the Newcastle team.

There is a large difference between 0.1 and 5 grams, and determining how well someone moves over this wide range are variables such as gender, geographic location in which one lives, age, body weight and size, population characteristics, how lifestyle, diet followed, type of polymer plastic and distribution of fragments.

Subsequent studies, such as research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology in 2021, have attempted to recalculate the amount of microplastics we inhale and breathe, reaching very different and significantly lower results, too. in order of magnitude: an adult, they estimate scientists at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, consume approximately 883 microplastic particles per day: weight equal to approximately 583 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of microplastic per day; so just over 4 micrograms, (millions of grams) per week.

Another 2019 study found even lower results: between 74,000 and 121,000 microplastic particles inhaled and ingested per year on average by an adult. Calculating the daily values, we are at an even lower estimate than the previous one. Therefore, the data supporting the “credit card hypothesis” appear to be overstated by several orders of magnitude, as determined by a follow-up analysis in 2022.

All this does not solve the question of how much microplastic we eat. The truth is that at the moment, by the WHO's own admission, it is not possible to know for sure, as there is very little data on the contamination of food, water and air by microplastics: beyond the debate over quantities, we undoubtedly assume that man, like all other animals, is exposed to pollution from micro and nanoplastics, that their effects on health are most likely harmful but not yet fully understood, and that the issue of plastic pollution is complex and urgent, where do you take it seriously because it is already so out of control.


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