Time to ditch the lattes? Drinking coffee in a takeaway cup just once a week exposes you to up to 90,000 plastic particles a year, study warns
- Microplastics were released from 3 types of popular disposable drink cups
- Violent shaking could cause the plastic cups to release more microplastics
- Washing plastic cups before use reduced the risks of microplastic release
- People may ingest 37,613–89,294 microplastics through plastic cups a year
Drinking a cup of takeaway coffee once a week could expose you to some 90,000 potentially harmful plastic particles each year, new research shows.
Thousands of microplastic particles were found in scientific tests to be present in drinks served in the three main types of takeaway cups.
A single cup released nearly 1,500 particles after five minutes exposure, with microplastics breaking off from the plastic wall of the cup.
But the longer a cup was left, the greater the number of particles were released.
Hot coffee in takeaway cups could expose you to nearly 1,500 microplastic particles in every drink, according to researchers at China’s Sichuan University – a total of nearly 90,000 a year if you have one every five days (stock image)
Scientists measured the numbers of microplastic particles released by different types of takeaway cup. They included polypropylene (PP), polyethylene teraphthalate (PET) and polyethylene (PE). Polyethylene is the lining typically found in takeaway coffee cups
How do microplastics particles get into our bodies?
Microplastics can get in our bodies via our drinks, our food or the air we breathe.
Conventional water treatment processes cannot completely remove microplastics from water.
Microplastics released from personal care and cosmetic products can also contact human skin – with microplastics smaller than 100 nanometres likely to penetrate our skin.
Daily drinking of tea brewed in plastic teabags, bottled water, beer and white wine can all release large amounts of microplastics.
A single plastic teabag at brewing temperature releases approximately 11.6 billion microplastics.
Opening a plastic bottle can lead to 63,400–1,225,500 high-density polyethylene (HDPE) particles releasing from the inner cap surface.
An electric plastic kettle releases 4–29 million microplastics per litre during use.
Infant feeding bottles could release 1–16 million microplastics per litre in formula preparation – an average of 1.5 million microplastics ingestion per infant per day.
With the outbreak and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, wearing disposable masks has also emerged as a potential route for humans to intake microplastics.
Microplastics have been found in even placentas, foetal livers, lungs, hearts, kidneys, and brains.
Hot liquids and shaking of the cup – as could happen during transport also resulted in more of the microplastic breaking off the cup walls and entering the liquid.
The impact on human health from microplastics is unknown.
A microplastic particle is any piece of plastic smaller than 5mm, but many are much smaller and only visible under a microscope.
Most of the pieces of microplastic in the study were smaller than 50 micrometres – around the diameter of a human hair.
The scientists looked at three different types of plastic cup – polypropylene or PP, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene (PE).
They filled each of the three types of plastic cup with 400ml of water, sealed with foil to prevent airborne microplastics entering the cup, and then it was shaken for one minute. The procedure was also carried out on a clean glass beaker, used as a benchmark to correct the potential procedural contamination.
The results found microplastic particle numbers in water reached between 723 and 1,489 particles/cup after five minutes.
Polypropylene cups produced the highest numbers of particles, which is concerning, given how widely used this material is.
The researchers from Sichuan University, writing in the journal of Hazardous Materials said: ‘Based on the results, we estimated that people may unconsciously ingest 37,613–89,294 microplastics a year due to the use of one plastic cup every 4–5 days. Considering the potential harm of microplastics, the contamination of microplastics resulting from the use of plastic cups for drinks needs to be taken seriously.’
The smallest microparticles could be the most damaging for health, as they are more likely to penetrate into human cells.
A 2017 review by scientists at King’s College, London hypothesized that eating or inhaling microparticles may lead to them accumulating in the body over time and could create stress on the immune system.
The threat from plastic pollution is an issue on which the Daily Mail has led the way with the Turn the Tide on Plastics campaign.
Research this year by Heather Leslie and others at the Free University of Amsterdam found microplastics in the bloodstream of volunteers, and microplastics have been found in placentas, newborn babies, lungs, hearts kidneys and brains, with unknown impacts.
As well as being damaging in themselves, plastics may pose a health threat by carrying harmful bacteria, or toxic chemicals.
WHAT FURTHER RESEARCH IS NEEDED TO ASSESS THE SPREAD AND IMPACT OF MICROPLASTICS?
The World Health Organisation’s 2019 report ‘Microplastics in Drinking Water’ outlined numerous areas for future research that could shed light on how far spread the problem of microplastic pollution is, how it may impact human health and what can be done to stop these particles from entering our water supplies.
How widespread are microplastics?
The following research would clarify the occurrence of microplastics in drinking-water and freshwater sources:
- More data are needed on the occurrence of microplastics in drinking-water to assess human exposure from drinking-water adequately.
- Studies on occurrence of microplastics must use quality-assured methods to determine numbers, shapes, sizes, and composition of the particles found. They should identify whether the microplastics are coming from the freshwater environment or from the abstraction, treatment, distribution or bottling of drinking-water. Initially, this research should focus on drinking-water thought to be most at risk of particulate contamination.
- Drinking-water studies would be usefully supplemented by better data on fresh water that enable the freshwater inputs to be quantified and the major sources identified. This may require the development of reliable methods to track origins and identify sources.
- A set of standard methods is needed for sampling and analysing microplastics in drinking-water and fresh water.
- There is a significant knowledge gap in the understanding of nanoplastics in the aquatic environment. A first step to address this gap is to develop standard methods for sampling and analysing nanoplastics.
What are the health implications of microplastics?
Although water treatment can be effective in removing particles, there is limited data specific to microplastics. To support human health risk assessment and management options, the following data gaps related to water treatment need to be addressed:
- More research is needed to understand the fate of microplastics across different wastewater and drinking-water treatment processes (such as clarification processes and oxidation) under different operational circumstances, including optimal and sub-optimal operation and the influence of particle size, shape and chemical composition on removal efficacy.
- There is a need to better understand particle composition pre- and post-water treatment, including in distribution systems. The role of microplastic breakdown and abrasion in water treatment systems, as well as the microplastic contribution from the processes themselves should be considered.
- More knowledge is needed to understand the presence and removal of nanoplastic particles in water and wastewater treatment processes once standard methods for nanoplastics are available.
- There is a need to better understand the relationships between turbidity (and particle counts) and microplastic concentrations throughout the treatment processes.
- Research is needed to understand the significance of the potential return of microplastics to the environment from sludge and other treatment waste streams.
To better understand microplastic-associated biofilms and their significance, the following research could be carried out:
- Further studies could be conducted on the factors that influence the composition and potential specificity of microplastic-associated biofilms.
- Studies could also consider the factors influencing biofilm formation on plastic surfaces, including microplastics, and how these factors vary for different plastic materials, and what organisms more commonly bind to plastic surfaces in freshwater systems.
- Research could be carried out to better understand the capacity of microplastics to transport pathogenic bacteria longer distances downstream, the rate of degradation in freshwater systems and the relative abundance and transport capacity of microplastics compared with other particles.
- Research could consider the risk of horizontal transfer of antimicrobial resistance genes in plastisphere microorganisms compared to other biofilms, such as those found in WWTPs.
Can water treatment stop microplastics entering our water supplies?
Although water treatment can be effective in removing particles, there is limited data specific to microplastics. To support human health risk assessment and management options, the following data gaps related to water treatment need to be addressed:
- More research is needed to understand the fate of microplastics across different wastewater and drinking-water treatment processes (such as clarification processes and oxidation) under different operational circumstances, including optimal and sub-optimal operation and the influence of particle size, shape and chemical composition on removal efficacy.
- There is a need to better understand particle composition pre- and post-water treatment, including in distribution systems. The role of microplastic breakdown and abrasion in water treatment systems, as well as the microplastic contribution from the processes themselves should be considered.
- More knowledge is needed to understand the presence and removal of nanoplastic particles in water and wastewater treatment processes once standard methods for nanoplastics are available.
- There is a need to better understand the relationships between turbidity (and particle counts) and microplastic concentrations throughout the treatment processes.
- Research is needed to understand the significance of the potential return of microplastics to the environment from sludge and other treatment waste streams.
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