Warning over ‘irreversible’ health risk from plastics as humans ‘eat one credit card a week’

Research suggests people in some parts of the world consume plastic equivalent to a credit card every week

The consumption of micro and nano plastics represents a health risk that could be "irreversible," researchers have said in a fresh warning about pollution.

In a review of literature funded by the Medical University of Vienna, researchers looked at the health risk to humans from ingesting MNPs.

Building on previous work which suggested that people in some areas of the world consume around five grams of MNPs per week - equivalent to a credit card - they examined contamination of food and drink containers.

Microplastics are fragments of plastics that are smaller than five millimetres and come directly from either the products we use or are created as larger plastic breaking down in the environment.

Nano plastics, meanwhile, are tiny pieces of plastics smaller than 5mm.

People, on average, consume around 90,000 particles of microplastics from bottled sources of water, the researchers noted.

Some 40,000 particles are consumed through tap water due to pollution in our rivers and seas, they said.

MNPs have also been found in seafood and other food, such as fruit and vegetables, although further research is needed "replicate these findings".

"Recent studies have also indicated the presence of MPs [microplastics] in some terrestrial food items, such as edible fruit and vegetables and store-bought rice, but further research is needed to replicate these findings," the researchers wrote.

The researchers concluded that this represented a potentially "irreversible" health risk.

"There is evidence, that pollution through MNPs represents a health risk," the researchers said.

"It could be a health risk that may be irreversible, and the more plastic that is produced, the more the next generation will have to suffer its effects," they added.

Last week, the world’s first study to look for the presence of plastics in human blood detected particles in 77 per cent of those tested.

PET plastic, most commonly used to produce drinks bottles, food packaging and clothes, was the most prevalent form of plastic in the human bloodstream.

The authors said plastic particles can enter the body from the air as well as through food and drink.

Dick Vethaak, professor of ecotoxicology and water quality and health at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, told The Independent the findings were “certainly alarming because it shows that people apparently ingest or inhale so much plastic that it can be found in the bloodstream”.

“Such particles can cause chronic inflammation,” he added.