Coming to you on land, sea and air
Microplastics have been found in the deep ocean, in the arctic, in our food. What we don’t yet know is how they are affecting our health and lifestyle. Dr Anjani Ganase reports. Plastic pollution is a known and observable phenomenon with impacts that include the entanglement, choking, smothering and drowning of marine life – turtles, sea birds and even whales. Yet, there is the unseen equivalent problem of microplastics that have managed to pervade not just the natural ecosystem but human life as well. Microplastics are classified as less than 5 mm in size; most are not visible to the naked eye and therefore require special techniques to see them. Microplastics can be anything from the by-products of plastic pellets used in manufacturing – plastic saw dust, microbeads found in scrubs and toiletries, fibres from synthetic cloths and from the wear and tear of tyres on the road. Other forms of microplastics result from the breakdown of large pieces of plastics ...