Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative

The abstract of a January 20, 2022 Nature Nanotechnology article https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-021-01063-3 by researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Netherlands Leiden University report that “ … The uptake pathways of nanoplastics by edible plants have recently been qualitatively investigated. There is an urgent need to accurately quantify nanoplastics accumulation in plants. Polystyrene (PS) particles … were doped with the europium chelate Eu–β-diketonate (PS-Eu), which was used to quantify PS-Eu particles uptake by wheat (Triticum aestivum) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa), grown hydroponically and in sandy soil … PS-Eu particles accumulated mainly in the roots, while transport to the shoots was limited … Visualization of PS-Eu particles in the roots and shoots was performed with time-gated luminescence through the time-resolved fluorescence of the Eu chelate. The presence of PS-Eu particles in the plant was further confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. Doping with lanthanide chelates provides a versatile strategy for elucidating the interactions between nanoplastics and plants …” #MicroPlastics #NanoPlastics #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic