May Contain Microplastics: Food Chain Contamination and What it Means for Us
Microplastics, tiny fragments of plastic measuring less than five millimetres in length, are everywhere. They are in our clothes, our homes, and even the food we eat. Small enough to go unnoticed, and near impossible to clean up once they have entered the environment, they have infiltrated the food chain at every level.
The main route via which microplastics enter the environment is through our waterways. Water degrades large plastic waste into tiny fragments, which are quickly swept away into rivers and oceans. It is well-documented how microplastics are ingested by marine life and accumulate in the food chain, including the seafood we eat. A 2024 case study suggests that 41.5% of commercial marine fish in the UK have ingested microplastics.
It’s not just seafood that’s impacted. Recent research has found that microplastics are accumulating in soil, with the UK being among the most contaminated in Europe. This contamination is a result of using sludge from waste water treatment works as fertiliser, irrigating with contaminated water, and plastic litter degrading. Microplastics are absorbed by soil microbes and taken up through plant roots, infiltrating the food chain from the very bottom. They are thus present in plants, the animals that eat those plants, and the humans who eat both.
So how much plastic are we actually ingesting? Estimates have differed, and until recently, the popular belief was that we were eating a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. New research and evaluation of this claim suggest that this was a vast overestimate: it is likely much lower. However, it is difficult to provide conclusive evidence. Nonetheless, microplastics are ubiquitous in our daily diets and habits, and could have lasting impacts on our health.
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Research is still in its infancy on how exactly microplastics impact human health. They have been detected in blood, saliva, the liver and placenta. Studies in cell cultures and animal models indicate that microplastics cause DNA damage and change gene activity, which are both known risk factors for cancer development. Additionally, they have been found to impact fertility in animal models. In addition to the plastics themselves, microplastics absorb toxic chemicals and heavy metals, the negative health impacts of which include disruption to the reproductive and nervous systems.
Learning about microplastics exposure can feel overwhelming, but there are steps you can take to reduce your microplastic consumption. For meat, rice, and vegetables, rinsing before cooking can remove residual microplastics, reducing, but not entirely eliminating, their plastic content. Prioritising whole foods and avoiding ultra-processed foods can help; the more processing a product goes through, the more plastic it is exposed to. Collectively, if we reduce our plastic consumption and pollution, we can reduce the amount of microplastics entering our environment and therefore our food chain. Make changes where you can to reduce your plastic usage, and we can work towards a plastic free diet.
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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk
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