Microplastics: One Bite and You’re Infected
Oregon State University, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A fisherman catches 50 pounds of flounder and sells it to a grocery store. A man buys some of this flounder to take home and eat like he’s been doing every day for the last 25 years. Three years pass and the man gets a call from his doctor; the man is diagnosed with cancer.
A pound of trash falls into the ocean, dumped by a large plastic bottle manufacturer. The plastic slowly sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Slowly, it decompresses into microscopic pieces of trash called microplastics that take more than a lifetime to decompose. These microplastics float in the ocean where fish consume these particles.
Microplastics are the Trojan horse of carcinogens that are affecting our food and water. Microplastics are particles from decomposed trash such as water bottles, plastic bags, and straws. These particles are then consumed by fish or put into our waterways through ocean pollution. When people eat fish or drink water, microplastics are put into our bloodstreams. Microplastics can cause immune system deficiencies and cancer.
European Environment Agency (original image) Mrmw (vectorization), CC BY 2.5 DK, via Wikimedia Commons
There are ways to reduce the number of microplastics in the world and reduce your consumption of microplastics. The first and easiest step is to recycle your plastic. Have a designated can at your house where all your plastic materials and other recyclables go instead of throwing them in the trash where they will end up in a landfill or the ocean. You can also research and buy water bottles and containers from eco-friendly companies instead of big corporations who produce more pollutants. The biggest help of all would be cleaning the oceans and beaches of trash to prevent the decomposition of plastics in these areas. You could contribute by joining a beach cleanup one weekend or you could donate to organizations that clean the oceans such as The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit that collects trash from the ocean and surrounding biomes.
To reduce your consumption of microplastics, you should buy from local fish farms instead of grocery stores with frozen fish. Even though these fish will have microplastics, they have far less than oceanic frozen fish. You should also refrain from catching and cooking fish from public waterways because they are most polluted with microplastics. You can reduce your microplastic consumption by drinking well water instead of tap water or buying a charcoal purifier to purify tap water to sift out larger microplastic particles.
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