US study on micro nano-plastics in bottled waters
A study on micro nano-plastics in bottled waters has published in the PNAS Journal, which is linked to the US National Academy of Science.
In the new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Columbia University presented a new technology that can see, count and analyse the chemical structure of nanoparticles in bottled water.
Instead of 300 per liter, the team behind the latest study found the actual number of plastic bits in three popular brands of water sold in the United States to be in between 110,000 and 370,000, if not higher. (The authors declined to mention which brands of bottled water they studied.)
However, the new technology was actually able to see millions of nanoparticles in the water, which could be “inorganic nanoparticles, organic particles and some other plastic particles not among the seven major plastic types we studied,” said co-author and environmental chemist Beizhan Yan, an associate research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The headline finding is that the researchers detected an average of 240,000 particles of nanoplastics in every litre of water analysed from different brands.
“Considering recommended daily fluid intake and the amount of nano-plastic detected in the study, a person would ingest the equivalent of 0.0002% of a credit card in one year. It would take an adult man, consuming 2 litres of water per day, 150,000 years to consume even a raisin-sized amount.”
What is the health implication with consumption of nano-plastic?
In 2022, the World Health Organisation (WHO) concluded that: “The available data are insufficient to determine whether exposure to NMP is associated with any direct or indirect characteristic pathology, as concern about quality assurance/quality control has been poorly accounted for in published studies.”
In their reactive messaging representing the industry position Natural Mineral Waters Europe states: “Considering recommended daily fluid intake and the amount of nano-plastic detected in the study, a person would ingest the equivalent of 0.0002% of a credit card in one year. It would take an adult man, consuming 2 litres of water per day, 150,000 years to consume even a raisin-sized amount.”