Microplastics, the scourge of beaches, oceans, waterways and aquatic life worldwide, might also be polluting the air we breathe, according to environmental health experts.
“There is a possibility, a real possibility, that some of those microparticles will be entrained into the air, and they will be carried around and we will end up breathing them,” said Frank Kelly, a researcher and professor of environmental health at King’s College, at an evidence session at the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) in the UK.
According to The Guardian, Kelly said the microplastics could enter the air after sewage sludge is spread on fields and dries out.
“This is a horizon-scanning issue but the particles are of a size that they are [breathable], they are increasing in number in our environment and there is a question to be asked,” Kelly added.
Microplastics, or microbeads, are plastic particles with an upper size limit of 5 mm and are found in facial cleansers, toothpastes or disintegrate from larger pieces of plastic or synthetic clothing. These pieces are often too small to be filtered by sewage treatment plants so they get released into bodies of water where they are accidentally consumed by fish, birds or sea mammals.
Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute also wrote that massive clouds of microplastics are emanating from the five subtropical gyres, with an estimated 269,000 tons of plastic from 5.25 trillion particles. Alarmingly, as Eriksen pointed out, about 92 percent of that plastic is microplastic.
The tiny plastic is being eaten by zooplankton, the foundation of the marine food system, meaning it eventually makes it all the way up the ocean food chain. Because humans eat fish and other seafood it can end up in our bodies as well.
“[Microplastics] have the potential to cause physical and chemical harm, as demonstrated by laboratory studies,” Kelly and his colleague Dr. Stephanie Wright said in a written statement. “They now present a human health risk, mainly due to their occurrence in dietary sources.”
Plastics are known to leach potentially harmful chemicals that could interfere with human hormones.