A groundbreaking study reveals that bottled water contains an alarming concentration of tens of thousands of identifiable fragments and previously unknown nanoplastics in each container, posing a significant health risk. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research, conducted by the team from Columbia University in the US, focused on nanoplastics, the microscopic offspring of microplastics that have further broken down.
Utilizing newly-refined technology, the researchers, for the first time, could count and identify these minute particles in bottled water. Astonishingly, they found that, on average, a liter of bottled water contained approximately 240,000 detectable plastic fragments. This is 10 to 100 times greater than previous estimates, which primarily considered larger plastic sizes.
Nanoplastics, due to their minuscule size, have the capability to pass through intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream, traveling to organs such as the heart and brain. They can even invade individual cells and cross through the placenta to reach the bodies of unborn babies.
Beizhan Yan, an environmental chemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, highlighted the significance of this discovery, stating, “Previously this was just a dark area, uncharted. Toxicity studies were just guessing what’s in there. This opens a window where we can look into a world that was not exposed to us before.”
Employing stimulated Raman scattering microscopy, the researchers tested three popular US bottled water brands (which were not named), analyzing plastic particles down to just 100 nanometers in size. They identified 110,000 to 370,000 particles in each liter, with 90 percent being nanoplastics and the remaining 10 percent microplastics. The study also identified specific plastics, including polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyamide, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and polymethyl methacrylate, all used in various industrial processes.
While the plastic types the researchers specifically searched for accounted for only about 10 percent of all the nanoparticles found in samples, the composition of the remaining particles remains unknown. If these are all nanoplastics, their quantity could be in the tens of millions per liter. The authors emphasized the need for prudent distinction, acknowledging the complicated particle composition within what seems to be a simple water sample, further stating, “The common existence of natural organic matter certainly requires prudent distinguish.”
