Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative

The abstract of a March 5, 2022 Journal of Hazardous Materials article https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127961 by researchers with Germany University of Bayreuth and Germany Technical University of Dresden reports that  “… Systematic studies on the effects of microplastics are currently hampered by using rather poorly characterised particles, leading to contradictory results for the same particle type. Here, surface properties and chemical composition of two commercially available nominally identical polystyrene microparticles, frequently used in effect studies, were characterised. We show distinct differences in monomer content, ζ-potentials and surface charge densities. Cells exposed to particles showing a lower ζ-potential and a higher monomer content displayed a higher number of particle-cell-interactions and consequently a decrease in cell metabolism and proliferation, especially at higher particle concentrations. Our study emphasises that no general statements can be made about the effects of microplastics, not even for the same polymer type in the same size class, unless the physicochemical properties are well characterized …” #MicroPlastics #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic @unibt