Microplastics and nanoplastics are fine particles of plastics that are ubiquitous, including in air and drinking water, and have been shown to have negative effects on the human body. A team of researchers at Columbia University recently confirmed that bottled water contains hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of plastic.
Organic materials such as dead trees and dead animals are broken down into different substances by microorganisms, but most plastics are not broken down by microorganisms and remain as extremely fine particles. Plastic particles with a diameter of 5 mm to 1 micron are called microplastics, and particles with a diameter of less than 1 micron are called nanoplastics, and these tiny plastic particles are found in the ocean, air, beverages, human blood, and everywhere.
The 2023 study confirms that microplastics can damage the human gut, the negative effects of microplastics on humans are becoming more and more apparent, and the details of the amount and type of microplastics present around us are becoming clearer and need to be analyzed. However, the research team said that the number and type of nanoscale particles have not yet been grasped in existing studies. The research team used stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy to analyze the type and quantity of microscopic plastics up to 100 nanometers in size contained in bottled water.
The team found that three bottled waters sold in the U.S. contained "66 nylon (PA)", "polypropylene (PP)", "polyethylene (PE)", "polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)" and "polyvinyl chloride." "Polystyrene (PS)" and "Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)" We measured the content of seven of these plastics. It was found that there were between 110,000 and 370,000 pieces of plastic per liter of drinking water. About 90% of them are nanoplastics and about 10% are microplastics.
The diagram below shows what types of plastics are contained in the three types of drinking water analyzed. The upper pie chart shows the quantity ratio of each type of plastic, and the lower pie chart shows the volume ratio. As you can see from the figure, PET and PA account for a large proportion. According to the research team, "PET is used as a material for bottles, and during transportation and storage, particles can come off the bottle and mix into the water. "The PA comes from a plastic filter that is used to purify the water. ”
In the future, the research team plans to analyze fine plastics in tap water and laundry wastewater.