All around us and within us

Plastic is the most notable material ever. It is a cheap, lightweight and no endless versatile. It can be shaped from shopping bags to life -saving tools in hospitals, and it is clean, safe and can be sterilized. Depending on its purpose, it can only be used once, for example, in medical settings where hygiene is essential – or is served for years.

Perhaps the surprising thing, with its light weight, plastics can also have environmental benefits, which reduces the use of fuel in transportation. But we are so relied upon plastic that global production reached about 414 million tonnes in 2023. This is a person who is growing every year.

Plastic is part of countless everyday items. Take toothbrush: Brussels are usually nylon, while the handle is often made of lightweight polytein or polypropylene. Manual toothbrush volume can be 8.5-19 cm. Now imagine that over time, it breaks into microplastics.

If microplastics can be smaller like 1 micrometer (about bacterium size) or even 0.1 micrometer (approximately SARS SARS KOO 2 virus size)-a toothbrush can theoretically broken into 8.5-19 trillion microplastics. And these particles are so small that to breathe or to be eaten.

The plastic environment doesn’t just “disappear”: they break into pieces. Sunlight, especially ultra-violet-B (UV-B) radiation, easily breaks plastic. Physical tension-blows, air, friction-it always breaks into small pieces. Even the state of the Stratsphrical Ozone layer, which reaches the Earth to the Earth, controls it, can affect how quickly the plastic is harassed. Some bacteria and cookie may also be helpful in breaking some plastic, but it is slow and often incomplete.

Result? Most plastic waste ends through our environment as micro and nanoplastics soup.

Although a major plastic debris can cause clear damage, such as confusing forest life or swallowing through marine birds, microplastics is a quiet but potentially more captaincy problem.

Plastic everywhere

Microplastics are now found within 1,300 species of invertebrates and are present at all levels of food chain. These particles are like oils (hydrophobic), which helps them cross the biological membranes and enter the cells of the living.

Their size also makes a difference. Small particles can travel more easily inside the body, where they can reach far away organs. Controlled water can be displayed through swimming or by food – either because food itself has plastic particles (such as seafood from contaminated water) or because it is contaminated during packaging or industrial processing.

Micro and nanoplastics can also breathe in air -generated dust, especially in some working locations, such as textile manufacturing or sand blasting with plastic -based materials. In everyday life, we can breathe artificial fibers that are shed with our clothes or small particles that are wearing tires.

Once you get in, the microplastics are found to move – this is a process called translosction, with animals, a trend that has not yet been found in humans.

Evidence now shows that micro and nanoplastics are present in human liver, kidney, lung, spleen, blood, heart and brain. In one study, the nano plastic shards of the polythene were found in the human brain more than the liver and kidney. They are found in the arterial fat plaque, which are related to cardiovascular problems. They have also been found in nausea and breast milk, which shows that these particles can be transmitted to generations.

Given how common to eat ordinary plastic, their presence in the human body is not surprising – but they are technically difficult to detect. Samples are often deposited in a hospital environment where plastics are present everywhere, which is at high risk of pollution.

Are they harmful?

Researchers are starting to investigate the association between plastic particles and human health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, pulmonary fibrosis – a lung disease that makes tissue stained and tightened, making it difficult to breathe – as well as liver and intestinal disease.

But science is still young. Studies of large -scale infectious diseases, which may take years to complete, will need to determine whether plastic directly causes these diseases.

The emerging image is not satisfactory. Although scientists are still exposing the full scope of the risks, the precautionary principle suggests that we should now work to reduce the exposure. This means how the plastic breaks, how they enter our bodies and what they are doing once.

Microplastics are no longer “just” environmental issues: they are a health concern. And as plastic production is still increasing, the scale of this problem is likely to grow in the scale before it shrinks.

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