How Your Tea Bag’s Microplastic Content material Might Be Slowly Killing You

Your tea bag’s microplastic content material is regarding — here is how one can keep away from ingesting carcinogenic plastics. Credit score: Unsplash Lynda Sanchez

You might wish to rethink that cup of tea. New analysis reveals that some tea luggage may very well be exposing you to harmful microplastics so tiny they will journey from the gut into the bloodstream and even the mind. 

The presence of those tiny particles of plastic has been related to a number of well being issues. A 2023 research in Frontiers in Endocrinology linked microplastics to endocrine disruption1, and a brand new 2024 research in Life Sciences posited that they may even enhance the danger of creating most cancers2. In different phrases, your tea bag’s microplastic content material needs to be taken severely.

New Analysis on Your Tea Bag’s Microplastic Content material

On this new research, researchers on the Unbiased College of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB) have been particularly wanting into the microplastic content material of tea luggage made with three sorts of plastic: polypropylene, nylon-6, and cellulose. They discovered that tea luggage containing polypropylene launched a whopping 1.2 billion particles of plastic per milliliter drop of tea, as in comparison with 135 million particles per drop for cellulose teabags and eight.18 million particles per drop for nylon-6 teabags.

Image of two women sitting down and each drinking a cup of tea from a mason jar.
You possibly can be unknowingly ingesting billions of microplastics together with your day by day cup of tea. – Credit score: Unsplash Matthew Henry

 “One thing so simple as [drinking] a cup of tea is sufficient to ingest […] hundreds of thousands or extra nanoparticles or nanoplastics,” Ricardo Marcos Dauder, one of many research authors, informed Newsweek3. And that is solely the start of the issue. “We don’t must be in particular circumstances, in particular locations, to be uncovered,” he stated.

What Are Microplastics?

Microplastics are precisely what they sound like: tiny items of plastic (lower than 5 millimeters lengthy, to be actual). However the place do microplastics come from? Nicely, many come from bigger items that break down over time. Prior to now, some have been even manufactured deliberately, like microbeads, the plastic beads as soon as utilized in sure magnificence merchandise like exfoliating facial scrubs. These have been unlawful within the U.S. since 20154.

Are microplastics dangerous? Briefly, sure. The dimensions of those miniscule particles makes them a risk to our well being and the environment, as they’re simply ingested or handed via water filtration programs into our bodies of water. As extra analysis involves mild, it’s necessary for customers to concentrate on the dangers and train warning in relation to potential sources of microplastics.

The Tiniest Plastics Have Large Repercussions on Human Well being

Image of a pile of colorful straws, shown broken into pieces until they're smaller and smaller microplastics.
These miniscule plastics are so small that they will simply be ingested and have an effect on our well being. – Credit score: Unsplash Fly D

Whereas researchers have been exploring the results of microplastics for a number of years, the particular microplastics Dauder and his workforce have been learning have solely just lately come to mild. Based on an article from Columbia College’s Mailman College of Public Well being, most microplastics measure between 5 millimeters and 1 micrometer5

However Dauder and his workforce have been wanting particularly on the even smaller nanoplastics, which measure between 1 and 1000 nanometers. (For context, a single human hair is about 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers broad6.) And based on Dauder, these smaller plastics are much more hazardous for human well being. “All the information reveals that the smaller the dimensions, the upper the uptake [of plastic] into the cells,” Dauder stated. “The smaller the dimensions, the upper the danger.”

Elevated Absorption and Journey of Nanoplastics Within the Human Physique

Researchers have been in a position to display this elevated hazard of nanoplastics by exposing the particles to varied human gut cells. They discovered that after simply 24 hours, a selected kind of mucus-producing intestinal cell had absorbed a major quantity of nanoplastics. The researchers even discovered these plastics within the nucleus of the cell, the place genetic materials is saved. The degradation of this DNA is a method during which the presence of those particles may contribute to elevated most cancers threat.

From the intestine, tiny nanoplastics can simply cross via the intestinal partitions and into the bloodstream, touring to completely different organs together with the guts and mind, and even into the placenta of an unborn fetus7.

In 2023, one analysis evaluate in Frontiers had already begun exploring the endocrine disrupting dangers of the presence of those plastics within the human physique. Examine coauthor Beizhan Yan, an environmental chemist at Columbia College’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, famous that, “Beforehand this was only a darkish space, uncharted. Toxicity research have been simply guessing what’s in there.” New consideration and analysis, he continued, “opens a window the place we will look right into a world that was not uncovered to us earlier than8.”

Brewing Plastic-Free Tea

Image of a hand pouring tea from a kettle into a glass mug, in front of several other ceramic cups. Brewing loose-leaf tea is a great way to avoid a tea bag's microplastic content.
The easiest way to keep away from ingesting microplastics by way of your tea is to keep away from tea luggage and keep on with loose-leaf tea. – Credit score: Unsplash Oriento

The supply of most tea luggage’ microplastic content material comes from the glue used to seal them. Most tea firms have traditionally used a plastic-based glue, although some, like Clipper, have phased this out in favor of a plant cellulose “bioplastic” resolution. Nevertheless, regardless of being extra sustainable in some respects than oil-based plastics, a 2020 research in Atmosphere Worldwide discovered that bioplastics are “equally poisonous” to traditional plastics9.

To raised eradicate plastics out of your morning cuppa, as an alternative search out firms that use no plastic in any respect. For instance, Bromley makes its teabag paper from wooden pulp that’s heat-sealed with out glue10. Pukka’s plant-based tea bag paper is folded utilizing a novel technique that may be sealed with a easy sew of natural cotton. Or when you’d somewhat select your individual tea with out having to do analysis on plastic-free tea luggage, brewing tea in a teapot is one of the simplest ways to make sure there’s no plastic in your cup.

Avoiding Microplastics In Different Merchandise

Sadly, tea luggage are only one manner customers can come into contact with microplastics and nanoplastics. Bottled water is a generally cited wrongdoer. In a current research printed in Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, researchers from Columbia College found {that a} liter of bottled water comprises a mean of 240,000 detectable plastic fragments — way over scientists had beforehand thought9

Microplastics have even been discovered within the faucet water we drink11 and the ocean water we swim in and supply the seafood we eat12. And as soon as there are microplastics in meals and water, it turns into more durable and more durable for us to steer clear. So if there are already microplastics in bottled water and microplastics in faucet water, what steps can we take to successfully keep away from them?

Methods to Scale back Microplastic Ingestion

Regardless of the prevalence of microplastics, there are actually nonetheless methods we will cut back our publicity. From discovering options to eradicate microplastics to avoiding them by minimizing plastic use, listed here are some concrete issues we will do as customers. 

Eliminating Microplastic Particles

To assist fight this endemic downside, scientists on the College of Missouri have created a liquid-based resolution constituted of pure substances that eliminates greater than 98% of microplastic particles. It stands out from earlier analysis in that it appears to work on 5 completely different sizes of polystyrene-based nanoplastics — as in comparison with earlier research, which targeted on eradicating a single measurement of particle.

“These solvents are constituted of protected, non-toxic elements, and their capability to repel water prevents extra contamination of water sources, making them a extremely sustainable resolution,” stated Piyuni Ishtaweera, a current alumna and present FDA worker who led the research whereas incomes her doctorate in nano and supplies chemistry at Mizzou.

Decreasing Plastic Use

Image of several reusable grocery bags on a wooden table, filled with various produce items (tomatoes, lemons, arugula).
Taking small steps like choosing reusable mesh grocery luggage as an alternative of plastic could make a distinction in relation to microplastic ingestion. – Credit score: Unsplash Getty Photos

Decreasing your individual plastic use gained’t simply have a helpful impact on the well being of you and your loved ones; it may additionally assist to fight this endemic downside. Even little steps could make a distinction — select plastic-free laundry detergent (just like the sheets from Smart Sheep) and convey your individual mesh produce bags to the grocery retailer as an alternative of utilizing the plastic ones supplied. Each small effort reduces not solely the quantity of plastic you’re coming into contact with, but in addition the quantity that’s leached again out into the atmosphere.

Sources:

  1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9885170/
  2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0024320524005277
  3. https://www.newsweek.com/harmful-release-tea-bags-microplastics-nanoplastics-2005123 
  4. https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-laws-regulations/microbead-free-waters-act-faqs 
  5. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-thousands-nanoplastics 
  6. https://www.nano.gov/nanotech-101/what/nano-size
  7. https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/bottled-water-can-contain-hundreds-thousands-nanoplastics 
  8. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2022.1084236/full
  9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32951901/
  10. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2300582121 
  11. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9103198/
  12. https://news.nd.edu/news/engineers-unmask-nanoplastics-in-oceans-for-the-first-time-revealing-their-true-shapes-and-chemistry/ 

Tags: carcinogen endocrine disruption microplastics nanoplastics tea luggage