In March 2022, the Blue Growth Research Lab discovered microplastics in the human blood for the first time. How has this come so far? And more, what can we do to prevent further damage?
In 2019, microplastics were identified as tiny pieces of plastics with a maximum size of 5 mm. There are two kinds of microplastics. The first sort of microplastics are the ones who are intentionally added to daily-life products, such as shampoo, toothpaste, face masks, … The second kind of microplastics are parts of bigger shaped plastics, for-example shopping bags, which erode to tiny little fragments. The microplastics don’t perish, but stay in the environment for many years (Bollaín Pastor & Vicente Agulló, 2019).
Microplastics are everywhere in our daily lives. They are released from the plastic bottles we drink of. The amount depends on the brand of the bottle (Song et al., 2021). Fitting clothes can liberate tiny plastics which can be inhaled (Zhang et al., 2020). Unintentionally, humans eat and breathe in to 0,1 to 0,5 g of microplastics via these ways (Senathirajah et al., 2021).......
The full article was written by WAVMA Colleague Dr Greta Van Stompel. To download the full article and an extensive list of references from the WAVMA website, click on Microplastics. Thought provoking and well worth exploring.