Microplastics: are they a problem?

Microplastics are something which have caused a lot of discussion in recent years, especially when it comes to their effect on the environments. A lot of research has been done into microplastics to examine exactly how harmful they could be, both in the wider world and when ingested.

The results have proved to be very interesting so here we take a look at what microplastics are, where they come from and whether they are something that we should be worried about.

What are microplastics?

We all know that we use a vast amount of plastic in our lives, and that it can have a massive consequence when it comes to the environment. We can make a conscious choice to avoid these plastics if we want to, but can we do the same with microplastics?

As you might expect, microplastics are pieces of plastic which are actually very small. To be considered a microplastic, each piece needs to measure less than 5mm across. These microplastics can come from many different variations of plastic and might have been created by fragmenting away from a larger piece of plastic or made to be that size for a specific use.

They can also be shed from textiles or tyres, so there can be huge numbers of them around us. When you realise that a simple 6kg load of washing could release more than 700,000 fibres to wastewater, it becomes easier to comprehend the scale of the number of microplastics that are around us in everyday life.

Microplastics, or microbeads, were also found to be a key ingredient in many cosmetics products. They were generally added to have exfoliating properties but were also found to be useful as fillers which could bulk out products. This meant that every time they were used, they were then washed off, and sent down the drain to our sewers. Due to their size, they are not generally captured by water treatment plants and are flushed out into our natural water sources.

The problems of microplastics

The issue of microplastics became big news when it became clear what kind of impact they were having on our waterways, and in particular, our marine life. It is estimated that there could be trillions of microplastic particles in the marine environment which can potentially take thousands of years to break down.

One of the most devastating consequences of this is that birds and other marine life can often mistake these microplastics for food and swallow them.

Microplastics have been ingested by a wide range of animals and there is a significant physical and toxicological risk posed to them by doing so. It is believed that animals that have been exposed to microplastics may suffer forms of physical harm and could even reproduce less effectively.

It is not just our rivers and oceans which are feeling the effects of microplastics. It has now been discovered that even the snow on Mount Everest contains microplastics, showing that nowhere is immune to this plastic invasion.

Scientist have also found that once in the water, plastic binds to chemicals in the ocean, including Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). These are chemicals which are resistant to environmental degradation, and the levels of plastics in the water and the food chain start to accumulate.

Are microplastics harmful to humans?

We think about microplastics harming our wildlife, but do we ever think about them harming us? We actually ingest more of these than we think. This is because plastic food containers have been found to shed huge numbers of tiny specks of plastic into hot water. This means it could affect your ready meal, your cup of tea or even your baby’s formula.

You are also likely to ingest microplastics by eating the very wildlife that has consumed it in our oceans. By being at the top of the food chain, we become a heavy consumer of these tiny pieces of plastic.

Our bodies are designed to cope with ingesting things other than food, as we already take in high amounts of sand and dust on a daily basis. Research suggests that we could consume anything up to 100,000 specks of microplastics each day, or around the mass of a credit card’s worth of microplastics in a year.

That could end up to the same amount of plastic that you would find in a credit card each year. It is not yet clear whether microplastics could have a harmful effect on us or not and whether they linger in our systems or pass straight out again.

It is also possible that they may be able to cause forms of irritation if they are able to enter the cells or tissues of the body and could cause respiratory problems if they are inhaled.

Combatting microplastics

The use of microplastics in some products has now been banned in many countries, but this can get complicated, as each nation has its own rules on what they include within the ban and what they do not. Some countries, such as Australia, have chosen to put a voluntary agreement in place instead of a legislative measure.

Many companies have now removed microplastics from their products and are happy to advertise that they have done so, allowing the consumer to make an active choice.

Another way to combat this problem is to dramatically cut our use of plastics in all walks of life. Despite raised awareness about plastics, the amount that is likely to be added to existing waste could double in the next 20 years. This has led to increased warnings that we need to act now in order to prevent this from being a much bigger problem in the not-too-distant future.

The frequency with which microplastics seem to be appearing throughout our lives is only set to grow, and there is tremendous concern about the time bomb that this is creating. The damage that microplastics can do seems to be relatively minimal at the moment, especially in humans, but this could change if the amount of microplastics we create continues to grow at the predicted alarming rates.

About the author

Nick Mills is the general manager at Ansini Ltd., which specializes in the manufacturing of vacuum-formed plastic components for the packaging, automotive, and aerospace industries.