Nanoplastics – Single Use Hot Beverage Cups Release “Trillions” during Normal Use

The abstract of an April 20, 2022 Environmental Science and Technology article https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c06768 by researchers with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that “… commonly used consumer products such as single-use food grade nylon bags and hot beverage cups lined with low-density polyethylene release nanometer-sized plastic particles … when exposed to water. The number of particles released was a function of the initial water temperature (high temperature vs ambient) for each of the tested materials. Mean particle diameters were between 30 and 80 nm with few particles >200 nm. The number of particles released into hot water from food grade nylon was 7 times higher when compared to single-use beverage cups. On a particle number density basis, particles released into water from a single 300 mL hot beverage cup equate to one particle for every seven cells in the human body in a size range available for cellular uptake …” #PlasticWaste #SingleUsePlastic #MicroPlastics #NanoPlastics @NIST