It’s a new health concern for humans (and animals, and the environment): microplastics. Years ago, maybe around 2011, a study came out showing that two year olds had 20 times the amount of plastic in their bloodstream than was deemed safe for adults. Since plastic chew toys, forks, and more abound for babies the problem was tackled by an explosion in popularity for wooden toys, “safer” plastics, and advice like “try not to cook/store food with plastic”. Still, BPA plastics continued to make headlines, Nalgene got some blame when it was revealed climbers were getting a big dose of plastic when they added boiling water to their Nalgenes, and everybody switched to metal water bottles.
And somehow, we’re worse off today than we were then. I mean, the device you’re reading this from likely has a plastic case, or you’re holding a plastic mouse. And when we threw out all our BPA, a good bunch still ended up in our water supplies, our food, and our homes.
According to a new study, our indoor air may be helping us breathe in about 11 tiny bits of plastic per hour. Other recent studies have shown that we’re breathing, eating, sweating, and passing microplastics.
Plastic in and of itself can cause all sorts of health problems. One major issue is that it disrupts hormones, contributing to changes in our health at all ages. Worse, plastic is often coated with other chemicals with a whole range of potential effects.
What can we do? Reduce our plastic usage, recycle to keep it out of landfills, and take care of our health. Zeolite, which is formed when alkaline groundwater meets volcanic ash, has a large cage-like structure that helps remove large particles from the body.
