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Plastic Pervasive in Food Supply, Says New Study

posted by hubie on Tuesday May 23 2023, @01:43AM   Printer-friendly

upstart writes:

Plastic pervasive in food supply, says new study:

Micro and nanoplastics are pervasive in our food supply and may be affecting food safety and security on a global scale, a new study led by CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, has found.

The study is one of the first to analyze the academic literature on microplastics from a food safety and food security risk viewpoint, building on past studies which primarily tracked plastics in fish.

It shows that plastics and their additives are present at a range of concentrations not only in fish but in many products including meat, chicken, rice, water, take-away food and drink, and even fresh produce.

CSIRO analytical chemist, food safety specialist and lead author of the paper, Dr. Jordi Nelis, said these plastics enter the human food chain through numerous pathways, such as ingestion as shown in the fish studies, but one of the main ways is through food processing and packaging. The research is published in the journal TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry.

[...] There are currently no definitive studies that demonstrate micro and nanoplastics in the environment cause harm to humans, however more research is needed to fully understand health effects.

[...] "The key missing information is determining safe levels of microplastics. We currently don't know exactly what the microplastic flux through the food system is or which levels can be considered safe," Dr. Nelis said.

Journal Reference:
Joost L.D. Nelis et al, The measurement of food safety and security risks associated with micro- and nanoplastic pollution, TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.trac.2023.116993

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2023, @01:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2023, @01:08AM (#1307802)

    Another source of micro plastic is car & truck rubber tires. Tire rubber is a polymer too--very long chain molecules suitably cross linked to give the appropriate amount of flexibility, wear resistance and many other properties.

    The Euros have been looking into where the wear particles go for some years now and other countries are starting to catch on. The smallest particles float away from roads and they are in all our lungs. Best to not live downwind of any big highway intersection where there is a lot of braking for a stop sign or stop light--it's the slip induced by braking, cornering and accelerating that causes most of the tire wear.