I thought my body was safe from microplastics. I was wrong

Ziya Tong · CBC Docs

· Posted: Mar 20, 2025 10:09 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago

Nothing volition radicalize you similar seeing different person's garbage successful your body. 

In my blood, successful my lungs and successful my guts, determination are tiny, invisible particles of integrative bags, aesculapian waste, tyre dust, synthetic covering and nutrient packaging. 

Making the movie Plastic People made maine recognize I americium a quality landfill.

In the documentary, from The Nature of Things, I person my home, nutrient and assemblage tested for microplastics arsenic portion of an probe into our addiction to integrative — and the increasing menace to quality health. 

I began the travel reasoning my assemblage was comparatively pristine. 

As a bona fide eco-nerd, I thought determination couldn't beryllium that overmuch integrative successful my home. My rug and sofa are made of earthy fibres; I don't devour a batch of accelerated food; I adjacent usage beeswax wraps for my leftovers. 

And this is why, erstwhile we archetypal began discussing ideas for the film, I thought I should effort to load my assemblage with extra plastic — by eating shellfish, for example, which I don't usually bash — to spot if we could observe a spike successful my system. 

Turns retired that wasn't necessary. My assemblage was already inundated. 

When we trash the environment, we inevitably trash our bodies too

While the subject is new, studies connected microplastics successful the quality assemblage are revealing conscionable however insidious the tiny toxic particles are. 

A caller survey looking astatine the quality brain, for instance, recovered we whitethorn person anyplace from 5 to 7 grams of integrative lodged betwixt our ears (though experts I spoke with suggested the existent fig is not that high). Seven grams of integrative — the precocious extremity of the estimation — is astir the value of a disposable integrative spoon.

It's a fitting representation erstwhile you see that an estimated 40 cardinal integrative utensils are utilized and thrown distant each azygous twelvemonth successful the United States alone. And that integrative doesn't disappear. It breaks down into tiny pieces that expanse into our oceans, are buried successful the ungraded and drift into the air. 

We respire successful that plastic. We devour that plastic. We portion that integrative (about 80 per cent of pat h2o contains microplastics).

So it shouldn't travel arsenic a astonishment that erstwhile we trash the environment, we inevitably trash our bodies too. Still, speechmaking astir microplastics successful the headlines is 1 thing, but seeing that garbage successful your assemblage is rather another. 

We are becoming integrative people

For the documentary, I travelled astir the satellite and met with scientists to trial the microplastic load successful my body. 

I volition spare you the gory details of having to trial my feces (very unglamorous), but it was the microplastics successful my humor that I recovered astir shocking. My samples were tested arsenic portion of a double-blind study. In the film, researchers were uncovering an mean of 11 microplastic particles successful 2.5 millilitres of humor — the equivalent of fractional a teaspoon.

Now, support successful caput the mean big has astir 5 litres of humor successful their body. If conscionable 2.5 millilitres contains 11 microplastic particles, bash the mathematics and see however overmuch garbage is coursing done your body. We are virtually becoming integrative people.

Can we halt integrative pollution?

The happening is, portion integrative is ubiquitous, astir of america inactive don't spot it successful our surroundings. That's due to the fact that truthful overmuch integrative is invisible and hides wherever you'd slightest expect it: successful paint, flooring, insubstantial cups, clothes, chewing gum, cigaret butts, makeup, sunscreen — it's adjacent successful our nutrient stickers. 

It goes without saying that the campaigns that absorption solely connected banning integrative straws oregon bags are missing the mark.

This brings america to the question I'm astir often asked: what tin beryllium done to halt integrative pollution?

The bully quality is determination are immoderate precise astute and dedicated radical moving to prohibition single-use plastics. Right now, the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations are taking place, with 170 countries moving connected a ineligible model to halt plastics pollution. There is besides a increasing concern coalition, which is moving toward systemic alteration and a circular economy. 

There are Plastic Free Communities astir the world, wherever residents are warring against single-use plastics, and successful Plastic People, we delve into caller technologies and integrative alternatives. So determination perfectly is hope, and determination are solutions. 

The precise archetypal measurement to solving a large occupation is identifying it and naming it. Ten years ago, fewer radical adjacent knew the occupation of microplastics existed. Today, the tiny, invisible menace is making front-page news. 

The cardinal happening to retrieve is that we bash cognize however to lick large problems. Just arsenic DDT was phased retired successful the 1970s aft we understood its harms, if we enactment unneurotic to prohibition single-use plastics now, we volition trim the harmful effects of microplastics connected the planetary assemblage and, importantly, connected the quality assemblage too.

Watch Plastic People connected CBC Gem and the CBC Docs YouTube channel.