Plastics are everywhere, from our phones to our cars to our utensils. Now researchers find they’re inside our bodies as well. Americans consume more than 70,000 microplastic particles every year, a new study says. That sounds like a lot, but that number is still likely an underestimate, the researchers say. The consequences to human health are largely unknown.
“The results of our study support the concept that we are living in a ‘plastic environment’ and consume microplastics in essentially everything we eat, drink and breathe,” said Hailey Davies, a marine biologist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, who led the new research.
Previous studies from other groups keyed Davies and colleagues into the amount of microplastics fish and other seafood accumulate. They wondered if humans might be similarly consuming bits of plastic throughout their daily lives.
The researchers combed through studies to find out how many microplastic particles ...
