In Graphic Detail: Mouthfuls of Microplastic
A new study estimates how much microplastic is sprinkled into your food and the air.
Article body copy
It’s tasteless, odorless, and nutritionally devoid, yet eaten every day. Nearly everyone on the planet unintentionally consumes microplastic—through food, water, and even air. How much? That depends on geography.
Plastic production has increased 240-fold in the past few decades. Over time, these plastics degrade into smaller and smaller pieces that infiltrate the air, soil, and water. To determine how much microplastic people have been eating, drinking, and breathing, researchers from Cornell University in New York analyzed food, water, and air in 109 countries.
According to the study, people in Asia, Africa, and the Americas are now eating and breathing six times more microplastic on average than in 1990.
The highest rates of dietary microplastic consumption are in Southeast Asia, with Indonesia topping the list at 15 grams—about three teaspoons—eaten or drunk per person per month. Malaysia comes in second with 12 grams per month. In these two countries, microplastic consumption increased by 59 times between 1990 and 2018. People in other Southeast Asian countries, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, are close behind with about 11 grams eaten and drunk per month.
Over 70 percent of the microplastic in Southeast Asian diets comes from seafood, the researchers say, as microplastic accumulates from imported packaging, litter, poor waste collection, and a lack of lined landfills. Plastic equipment used for milling and packaging refined grains also adds microplastic to people’s diets in many Asian countries.
Among countries inhaling the most airborne microplastic, China and Mongolia top the list, with people there breathing in about 2.8 million particles per person per day. Airborne microplastic—comprised of tiny particles that are typically less than one millimeter in diameter—largely ends up in the atmosphere from industrial manufacturing and urban activity.
The study authors argue that the only way to rid our food and air of microplastic is to eradicate plastic pollution—the ambitious goal of a global plastics treaty in the making. The researchers call on governments to incentivize the removal of plastic from oceans and rivers and to better manage waste through sealed landfills. The study predicts that if 90 percent of plastic debris were eliminated from waterbodies, the amount of ingested and inhaled microplastic in Southeast Asia would be halved.