Coffee With A Helping Of Microplastics
Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world. The International Coffee Association says we drink around 600 billion cups of coffee a year. They’re lightweight, easy to handle, and cheap, but there’s a catch: those paper cups aren't entirely paper after all; they’re coated with plastic that’s leaking into your coffee.
Disposable paper cups are made of 90–95% paper, and the remaining 5–10% is a hydrophobic plastic film. “The plastic polyethelene coating is what makes the paper cup waterproof and able to hold liquids in the first place. As chemical producer BASF explains, the plastic liner acts as a barrier to liquids, retains heat, and allows paper cups to maintain its shape. In other words, that plastic coating is also essential for the paper cup to function as a cup and to hold hot liquids.” (TastingTable.com)
Research done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology shows that that plastic coating, when exposed to hot liquids, starts to break down, and releases approximately 25,000 micron-sized microplastic particles into one cup of 100 ml hot water in 15 min. The average size of the nanoparticles was between 30 nanometers and 80 nanometers, with few above 200 nanometers. This is no small amount and these nanoparticles are so tiny that they could get inside of cells, possibly disrupting their functions. (ResearchGate.net)
The researchers also detected ions such as fluoride, chloride, nitrate and sulfate, and toxic heavy metals such as lead, chromium, cadmium and arsenic in the water samples. A person drinking three cups of tea or coffee daily might ingest 75,000 tiny plastic particles that are invisible to the human eye. This is small enough to enter the bloodstream and accumulate in our tissues and organs, warns the Consumer Reports in The Washington Post.
** High resolution images of the nanoparticles found in single use beverage cups, such as coffee cups, at the micrometer (one millionth of a meter) scale. Credit: C. Zangmeister/NIST, adapted by N. Hanacek/NIST
Is there a quick fix to this problem? Probably not. The convenience of paper cups is such that it’s hard to find a suitable replacement. Globally, some 264 billion paper cups were produced in 2019 for consuming food and beverages. (ZMEScience.com)
The main takeaway here is that there are plastic particles wherever we look. And there are a lot of them. And according to Rachel Adams, a senior lecturer in Biomedical Science at Cardiff Metropolitan University, ingesting microplastics could cause a number of potentially harmful effects, such as:
Inflammation: when inflammation occurs, the body's white blood cells and the substances they produce protect us from infection. This normally protective immune system can cause damage to tissues.
An immune response to anything recognized as 'foreign' to the body: immune responses such as these can cause damage to the body.
Becoming carriers for other toxins that enter the body: microplastics generally repel water and will bind to toxins that don't dissolve, so microplastics can bind to compounds containing toxic metals such as mercury, and organic pollutants such as some pesticides and chemicals called dioxins, which are known to causes cancer, as well as reproductive and developmental problems. If these microplastics enter the body, toxins can accumulate in fatty tissues.
Source: Daily Mail
One solution is to bring your own reusable travel mug when you get your coffee at a coffee shop. That way, you can enjoy your coffee, without having to worry that you're getting an extra dose of microplastics on the side. On the other hand, that coffee is also full of pesticides, but that’s another story!