Do you take your tea with milk, sugar, or microplastics?
The latter may be unavoidable, according to researchers at McGill University.
A recent study by the Canadian college suggests that plastic tea bags shed micro- and nano-sized particles into your brewed beverage. (She types, between sips of tea…)
The possible health effects of ingesting these itty bitty pieces remains unknown. But I imagine they’re not a hidden benefit of the drink.
Over time, plastic breaks down into tiny microplastics and nanoplastics—the latter less than 100 nanometers (nm) in size. (For reference, a human hair has a diameter of about 75,000 nm).
At just under 5mm in diameter (smaller than a sesame seed), microplastics are tiny pieces of synthetic material that come from degraded or shredded bottles, packaging, and clothes.
They’re puny enough to sneak into our bodies undetected through the food we eat, or even the air we breath.
A person’s average microplastic consumption—depending on their dietary requirements, of course—is somewhere between 70,000 and 121,000 particles per year.
Rates rise by 100,000 for those who drink only bottled water. (Which just seems like karma, really.)
What about those new highfalutin tea bags made of plastic mesh? The wee pyramid of petals may impress your friends, but who knows? It may also be slowly poisoning them.
Led by chemical engineering professor Nathalie Tufenkji, researchers experimented with four different commercial teas packaged in plastic bags. Brand names were not disclosed.
Cutting open each sack, they removed the tea leaves—”so that they wouldn’t interfere with the analysis,” a McGill press release said—then heated each pouch in 95 °C (203 °F) water to simulate the brewing process.
Using electron microscopy, the team found that a single plastic tea bag at brewing temperature released about 11.6 billion microplastic and 3.1 billion nanoplastic particles into the water.
These levels are “thousands of times” higher than previously reported in other foods.
Tufenkji & Co. also explored the effects of those particles on so-called “water fleas”—small aquatic model organisms called Daphnia magna, often used in environmental studies.
Treated with various doses of the tea bags’ plastics, the animals survived, but did show “some anatomical and behavioral abnormalities.”
Lead study author Laura Hernandez, a PhD student, says more research is needed to determine if the plastics could have more subtle or chronic effects on humans.
More on Geek.com:
- All the Sea Turtles In This Study Had Microplastics In Their Guts
- Man Paddles 2,900 Miles Across Pacific to Help Curb Ocean Pollution
- Fiber-Based Six-Pack Can Rings Offer Eco-Friendly Alternative to Plastic
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