The creation of microplastics by opening a bottle. where do they end up?

Cutting, tearing or unscrewing plastic wrappers from food packages or drinks creates a certain quantity of microplastics or nanoplastics, even if not visible, which can end up in our food.

The drinks in the PET bottles are so comfortable that they have become so widespread that they never fail in our homes, in our cars or on our outings. It could be said that they have “deadly” comfort because, if not handled correctly, they become not only hazardous waste for the environment, but also for health.

In fact, a group of researchers from the University of Newcastle and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have studied what happens of the fragments that are created by unscrewing the PE cap from PET bottles, or by cutting a package of food or tearing an envelope containing biscuits, for example.

The products to be analyzed were weighed, before and after opening, with electronic microbalances and the situation of the product and residues after opening the package was analyzed with electron scanning microscopes.

In analyzing the data set of a mixed sample of food and drink packaging, the researchers verified that the quantity of nanoparticles that are created at each opening can be indicated between 10 and 30 manograms.

Obviously, this gap depends on the type of opening performed, in that, if it is made by unscrewing a cap or using a scissors, the quantities of fragments released will be less than a cut with a knife or a tear.

Are these worrying quantities?

According to the researchers, not absolutely, but the nanoplastics and microplastics that we could introduce into our body do not come only from these operations, but also from the drinks we drink, from the fish we eat from certain cosmetics and from some clothes with which we come into contact during our life.

Exactly what happens to the human organism by ingesting these infinitesimal plastic fragments is not well defined to date, but a step on the knowledge of the problem was made when some scholars have related nanoplastics to the brain disorders of some fish, which are in the our food chain.

Obviously, what is always to be reiterated is that plastic is not man’s enemy, but it is the man who has not been able, or wanted, to manage, in the correct ways, the reuse of plastic, leaving it to end up in the seas and then suffering the dramatic consequences.

Plastic you can commit suicide if the human being wants to take the concept to the extreme in an abstract way, but you will never die of it if you manage waste according to the rules of the circular economy.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Original article in Italian.