Inadvertently, humans eat five grams of plastic a week which is the equivalent of a credit card in terms of weight. They ingest plastic mainly through drinking water and/or shellfish.
Researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia, found that people ingest up to 102,000 very small pieces of plastic less than 1 mm in size weighing 250 grams per year. Ninety percent of it comes from bottled and tap water. Beer and salt also contain the highest levels of plastic microparticles.
“Plastic is polluting our planet in the deepest ocean trenches, but now we know that it’s also polluting our own bodies, through the food we eat and the water we drink…”
Alec Taylor, Head of Marine Policy at WWF
Microplastics are particles of plastic often released into the environment as microbeads. They are banned in the UK but plastic particles are everywhere and the oceans are full of them killing marine wildlife.
