Microplastics in Bottled Water At Least 10 Times Worse Than Once Thought

Pure, natural spring water, just as nature intended. Well, not exactly. Bottled water has long been marketed as a safer alternative to what comes out of the tap—if it doesn’t come straight from a mountain spring, it’s at least purified and chemical free. But a new study by scientists at Columbia University and Rutgers University demonstrates that bottled water may be far worse when it comes to microscopic plastic pollutants capable of passing into the bloodstream. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] For years scientists have raised the alarm over the global spread of microplastics, which form when plastics break down into increasingly smaller fragments. The particles, which range in size from five millimeters (1/4 of an inch) down to 1 micrometer (1 millionth of a meter, or 1/25,000th of an inch) have been found at the top of Mount Everest and at the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches, with unknown impacts on human and ecosystem health. Previous studies have found that a liter of bottled water can contain tens of thousands of identifiable (at least through a microscope) plastic particles. But those studies stopped at the 1 micrometer threshold, largely because of technological limitations. This week’s study, published Jan. 8 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses a newly developed laser technology to find even smaller fragments, upping the number of plastic particles in bottled water by a factor of 10,...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change Climate Is Everything embargoed study healthscienceclimate Source Type: news