‘Harvard Thinking’: Plastics are everywhere, even in our bodies
We ingest equivalent of credit card per week — how worried should we be? In podcast, experts discuss how to minimize exposure, possible solutions.
The world has a plastic problem. Not only are nonbiodegradable plastics clogging oceans and landfills, but they’re also invading our bodies.
“Ingestion is the primary route of exposure, and we are consuming about 5 grams of micronanoplastics per week; that’s the equivalent of a credit card,” said Philip Demokritou, the founding director of the Environmental Health Nanoscience Laboratory and the Center for Nanotechnology and Nanotoxicology at the School of Public Health.
We’re “drowning” in plastic exposure, according to Don Ingber, the founding director of the Wyss Institute and a professor both in the Medical School and School of Engineering. From the synthetic clothes we wear to wildfire smoke, it’s nearly impossible to escape. And our bodies can’t fully break plastics down. This is especially alarming as research has found plastic in nearly every bodily organ.
“These particles … are what we call sustained release vehicles, meaning they’re just sitting there, and every day they’re releasing a little bit for the rest of the lifetime of those cells in your gut or other organs,” Ingber said. “That makes [them] even more dangerous.”
