How Plastic We Have Become
The inevitable has happened. We are literally eating our own waste. The New Radicals may have claimed that “you have got the music in you,” but now you also most likely have plastic in you, too.
According to a study presented at the 26th United European Gastroenterology (UEG) Week in Austria, microplastic particles have been found in human feces. Dr. Philipp Schwabl, his team from the Medical University of Vienna, and the Environment Agency Austria examined stool samples from eight participants from Europe, Japan, and Russia. Tiny plastic particles were present in all eight people.
Of course, prior to the test, all of the participants had consumed food or beverages stored in plastic containers, wrapping, or bottles. Six of the eight had also eaten fish from the sea. The samples contained nine of the ten varieties of plastic particles (bits of plastic 50-500 mm in size) tested for, and there was an average of twenty microplastic particles (plastic particles under 5mm) per 10 grams of stool. The most commonly-found plastics were polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Plastic has become such an integral part of our daily lives that it is no surprise that it has now been found in human stools. Dr. Schwabl and his team estimate that “more than 50% of the world population might have microplastics in their stools.” Microplastics, roughly the size of a grain of rice, have become a major environmental concern over the past decade. Most microplastics are the result of the breakdown of larger plastics, or tiny microbeads, used in beauty products, which are already banned in Canada, the United States, among other countries.
Studies have confirmed that microplastics can also be found in tap water. Last year, microplastics were detected in 83% of tap water samples around the world. The highest contamination rate belonged to the United States, where 94% of the samples were contaminated.
What’s worse is that plastic can still make it inside you even if you haven’t been actively consuming seafood. Plastic use is so pervasive that it is impossible to remove it from the food chain. Think about the plastics from plastic utensils, plastic containers, plastic wrapping, or any plastic in machinery used to process your food. Additionally, household carpeting, clothing, and other plastic-based items can shed small fibres. Can you think of anything that has not touched plastic or is not plastic-adjacent?
Why should you care about microplastics in your stool? Well, because of their potential risks to human health. Eating microplastics isn’t simply bedazzling the inside of your intestines. Evidence from bird studies suggests that plastics alter the structure of small intestines, disrupting iron absorption and stressing the liver. While scientists still know little about the effects of microplastics in the human body, seeing what microplastics can do to animals raises concerns about what they can do to humans. For example, could the smallest microplastics—those five times smaller than the width of a human hair—enter your bloodstream, your lymphatic system, or even your liver? Could those microplastics affect the immune response of your digestive system, or aid the transmission of toxic materials and pathogens? To date, the answers to these questions remain unknown.
As with most research, the stool study has its limitations; namely, it is a pilot study which includes so few study subjects that larger-scale studies are needed to confirm its findings. Nevertheless, the Austrian study is still significant as it is the first documentation of plastic in humans, and it raises the possibility that there’s something unusual going on. In the meantime, while the science world sorts this out, we should all pay more attention to our food sources, the environment, and our role in reducing our plastic use and recycling. Being a member of The Plastics may seem cool in a high school movie, but having plastic in your poop is not.