As concerns grow about microplastics, small plastic fragments less than 5mm, this report explores their presence in everyday items like clothing, carpets, and cookware, and examines the potential health risks of exposure within our homes. A researcher analyzed a family home to assess microplastic levels, finding high concentrations in bedrooms and bathrooms.
Every few years, we are jolted into fears of a pollutant: Asbestos, fine particulate air pollution and synthetic pesticides, to name a few. This one is in the clothes we wear, the carpets we walk on, our cookware and utensils and the packaging in the supermarket.
And as our reliance on plastic grows, so do the concerns -- particularly around environmental microplastics: small fragments of plastic less than 5mm in size.The anxiety is about what harm they can do to us, particularly from exposure in our homes. "We are breathing it in and so it can get trapped in the lungs," says Dr Scott Wilson, a microplastics researcher at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Macquarie University. "The larger particles get expelled as we cough it out, but the smaller particles get caught and reside there and can move across into the bloodstream." Eleanor Saxon-Mills is a busy mum to one-year-old Sunny and four-year-old Ines. She does more than most for the environment: in her suburban backyard in Sydney's western suburbs, she grows her own vegetables and even has egg-laying chooks."Which is a little bit terrifying," Ms Saxon-Mills told 7.30. "When I look around my house, there's plastic literally everywhere. I would have no idea how it's even getting into me, let alone how to stop it getting into me." When 7.30 visited, Eleanor kindly offered to make a cup of tea. But even a welcome cuppa could be a problem since tea bags have microplastics in their construction.To test that, we invited Dr Scott Wilson to analyse Eleanor's home environment. He left Petri dishes around the house to catch plastic particles from the air. While this was not going to capture what might be consumed in food and drink, the results were surprising. To Eleanor's surprise, the highest microplastic capture was in her bedroom and the bathroom, mostly from synthetic fibres.Next was the children's play area, where the microplastics on the Petri dish were little chunks rather than fibres -- as you would expect, given the volume of toys. Dr Wilson also examined the dust from Eleanor's vacuum cleaner, where again there were plastic fragments."Potentially," Dr Wilson said. "Particularly with kids and babies crawling around on the ground, picking it up, they're putting their hands to their mouths. They'll be ingesting it more so than adults." Eleanor's kitchen was actually quite low in airborne microplastics, but she was shocked by the findings elsewhere, including the play area.Dr Wilson was reassuring. He takes a pragmatic approach and claims that if the play area is vacuumed daily, then the microplastics load will be very small.It has been estimated that there are between 13,000 and 16,000 chemicals or chemical "families" in plastics, the vast majority of which have not been tested for safety. Of the relatively few that have been studied, a significant proportion have been found to be linked to possible harm. These include the "forever chemicals", notably PFOS , PFOA and PFHxS , all of which have effectively been banned in Australia since July of this year.Those are the ones we know about. The fear is that this is an iceberg of risk and the epicentres of concern are our homes.The worry about nanoplastics is that they can be absorbed into the bloodstream and pass to organs like the heart and brain, perhaps causing inflammation. But the reality is that with microplastics, whatever their size, we are relying heavily on animal studies. "Through studies with surrogate species like rats and mice, we're seeing effects such as growth development, reproductive effects, behavioural changes, all occurring in these surrogate species that could potentially be happening in humans as well," Dr Wilson told 7.30. "There was a study done where they put microplastic in the water supply of mice and compared that to mice that weren't given microplastics in the water. "They did the maze test where they run through the maze and find their food at the end. They compared the two, the control group and the microplastic-exposed group, and the ones that had been exposed to microplastics were behaving as if they had early onset dementia.There is also laboratory and some animal evidence that microplastics can induce what is called oxidative stress. That is basically biological rusting and is thought to be one of the core processes in aging and organ damage. The immune process of concern is inflammation, where microplastics have been linked to firing up the immune system. A side effect of that is also premature aging and tissue damage. This has also been shown in mice exposed to short periods of microplastics in their water supply.It is easy to panic about this, so it is important to remember that the solid evidence for human harm is light on. But if we wait until there is proof, it might be too late. A recent review of the scientific evidence raised significant concerns about the potential of nanoplastics to disrupt how nerves in the brain communicate with each other and potentially accelerate diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease.Experts say you should follow what is called the precautionary principle: If you suspect an environmental factor might be risky and there is no harm in removing or avoiding it, then do so. For me, that has meant getting rid of plastic wrap, plastic chopping boards, utensils and non-stick cookware. I have also replaced plastic containers with glass. Not a cheap process, but you do not have to do it all at once. In addition, I avoid microwaving plastic or putting it in the dishwasher."Anytime you use a high wash cycle or high temperatures, you are basically going to be eroding -- micro-erosion -- off the surface of those plastics that you've got in there," he said.In terms of prevention at the source of the problem, one answer is better regulation and knowledge of what chemicals are actually being used in plastics and a more complete program of testing to know which are safe.We can not escape plastics but it would be nice to know which ones we can be more relaxed about.
Microplastics Environmental Pollution Health Risks Indoor Air Quality Plastic Pollution
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