Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Plastic now not only pollutes the environment, but also enters the human body through food.
Not without reason, as reported by The New York Post, researchers from the Ocean Conservancy and the University of Toronto recently discovered that nearly 90%, to be precise 88%, of the food samples tested contained plastic particles.
The test results found that the proteins consumed by humans include chicken, beef, seafood, pork, tofu and three vegetable alternatives. The findings were published in the journal Environmental Pollution.
The samples were purchased in April 2022 from two supermarkets and one grocery store in the Portland, Oregon, USA area.
Not only that, these findings also imply that humans are likely to consume microplastics, regardless of their diet. Microplastics themselves have long been associated with negative effects on health.
“This is a surprising reminder of how severe plastic pollution is – humans live on land, but seafood samples are just as likely to be contaminated with plastic as land-based proteins,” said study co-author and marine biologist Dr. Britta Baechler, associate director of plastic science at the Ocean Conservancy, said in a statement.
Previous research shows that the average person consumes as much plastic as a credit card every week. Not only that, plastic particles – less than 5 millimeters long – have been found in the ocean and clouds.
“As oceanographers, my co-authors and I are deeply concerned about the growing plastic crisis in the world's oceans,” said study co-author Dr. George Leonard, Ocean Conservancy chief scientist. “But our research shows that the plastic in our food comes not only from fish and shellfish, but also a variety of other protein sources.”
The Ocean Conservancy report revealed that 44% of the microplastics found were fibers and 30% were fragments.
Ocean Conservancy researchers say that the way food is processed may be the cause. They found that more processed proteins contained higher amounts of microplastics than unprocessed proteins.
The impact if microplastics enter the body
For information, the Ministry of Health (Kemenkes RI) explains that microplastics are very small pieces of plastic and pollute the environment. Generally, microplastics are defined as having a diameter of less than 5 mm.
The Indonesian Ministry of Health said that microplastics that enter the human body can settle in the respiratory tract, digestive tract and other organs. Microplastics that cannot be digested or absorbed by the body can cause irritation and trigger inflammation.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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90% of Microplastics Found in Beef, Chicken and Tofu
(Linda Hasibuan/hsy)