Microplastics: the non-mysterious cycle from your cup to your gut
“If we continue to consume plastic packaging at the current rate, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by weight.”
Plastic started to be produced around the second half of the twentieth century. Plastic is a resistant and easily molded material, which is the reason why it has had a great reception from different industries. Its growth has expanded until reaching 359 million tones by 2018 – with more than 50% of its production since 2000. It is not a novelty to say how bad plastics are for the environment. But are you updated about those invisible little elements invading the oceans and threatening marine creatures as soil organisms, called microplastics?
And to all this, are you wondering what is the relation between microplastics and coffee?
Your morning cup of coffee is an impact decision. Either you are choosing for conservation of the environment or damaging nature with each of your day-to-day practices.
What are microplastics and where they can be found?
First things first, microplastics are defined by scientists as plastic particles smaller than 5mm. There are two kinds of microplastics. Primary microplastics are released to the environment having already this small size; and secondary microplastics are particles originated by degradation of larger plastics.
So-called “paper cups”, are not only composed of paper. A very thin layer made of polymers –usually polyethylene- adhered into the paper cup ensures that your cup will not let your dark elixir lick instantaneously once poured on it. Paper cups are part of a wide collection of single-use packaging introduced into the market as a cleaner alternative for handing food and beverages. These particular applications of plastics represent the highest amount of plastics produced, 39.9% in 2018, when compared with other sectors that also use plastics, as the construction or automotive sector. Single-use packaging usually lacks facilities to be processed and recycled; and even when the facilities exist, people get confused about the right bin where their cup should go to enter a recycling cycle.
Which is the final destination of the paper cups’ thin layer of plastic?
In the Netherlands, almost all plastic-coated paper cups are thrown away with the residual waste which later end up in the incinerator. This process only contributes -together with other harmful practices- to the metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) that the country is emitting yearly, damaging our air quality and contributing to global warming. In 2014 it was found that the Netherlands produced 9.9 metric tons per capita of CO2, ranking as one of the highest in Europe, according to data of the World Bank.
While incineration is the destiny of a big fraction of single-use plastics, recent studies have shown that riverine surfaces of Amsterdam and other regions of the Netherlands carry in their water bodies considerable amounts of microplastics (study 1, study2). This is consistent with the information published in “The New Plastics Economy” (2016), where it is stated that from the global single-use plastic waste, an overwhelming 72% of plastic packaging is not recovered. At least 32% of the packaging waste is lost during the processes of collection systems of landfill or incineration.
Another set of studies has shown that even when paper cups follow the route of landfill collection, they might be contributing to microplastic contamination of land; due to improper handling of waste. This situation is aggravated by the fact that atmospheric particles can be transported over considerable distances. The effects on the environment have been increasingly assessed by scientists. Findings around microplastics indicate effects on soil properties –related to agricultural activities, ingestion by terrestrial and continental birds, or ingestion by earthworms causing structural changes in their burrows, lethal toxicity to fungi, and even lung inflammation in small animals.
The effects of microplastics on marine environments are even more acknowledged by scientists. It could be possible that organisms and sediments in the ocean accumulate between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastic. Studies even reported that plastic pollutants might be entering human bodies through the ingestion of seafood, salt, sugar, and beers. An average person could be ingesting around 5 grams of plastic every week! Until now, drinking water has been point as the main source of plastic ingestion by scientists; but microplastics traveling into animal muscle tissue and the health effects of its ingestion by humans are the focus of research nowadays.
So what you can do?
Take action! Stop the use of disposable cups, and in general, all kinds of disposable packaging. Be creative, look for some handy containers to carry with you.
Look for a nice reusable cup, such us the black cup! And support businesses aiming for sustainability : )
By: Paola Solís Huertas