Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic less than five millimeters long, but their global impact is anything but small.

Microplastics are everywhere around and inside of us. They have been found in our soil, air, salt, water, wildlife- even in our poop. If that’s not enough for you, they have been found in beer too!

Most plastics take roughly 500 years to break down.

Along the way, they are worn down by sunlight and wave action until they break up into smaller particles (less than 5 mm) known as microplastics. They can be so tiny that you could fit more than 400 microplastic particles on the head of a pin.

Microplastics can also be small to begin with as is the case of manufactured plastic products like small resin pellets that can be melted into any shape (They’re called nurdles. Weird, right?) as well as microbeads.

While their long-term effects on humans are currently unknown, microplastics have been found to contaminate every level of aquatic food chains (and birds) and their harmful effects are two-fold:

1. They are harming marine life (and birds) by physically blocking or irritating their digestive tracts which can result in a diminished appetite, eventually letting the animal starve to death with a stomach full of plastic.
2. They are also harming animals on a chemical level because land pollutants caught in the run-off from rain adhere to the microplastics in concentrations a million times higher than surrounding water.

Microbeads

Microbeads, a type of manufactured microplastic, are tiny pieces of plastic that are added to certain health and beauty products like exfoliating washes and toothpastes.

You know those tiny exfoliating beads in your face or body wash?

Yeah, those were often made of plastic too.

As you can imagine, their small size allows them to pass through water filtration systems, potentially threatening aquatic species and their habitats. Well, at least they used to.

Congress passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 to place a federal ban on any rinse-off cosmetics containing plastic microbeads (Thanks Obama!).

So, what’s scarier than thinking about the estimated 15 trillion tons of microplastic particles thought to be floating in the ocean? How about the fact that there might be even more in our soil and lakes already.

Let’s break it down

Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP) are the two plastic polymers that were most prevalent in marine microplastic debris. That’s because other than polystyrene (Styrofoam), those are the two main plastics that most single-use items are made from. PE is often used to make plastic bags and storage containers, while most bottle caps, rope, gear, or strappings are made from PP.

If you want to see how intense our dependence on plastic really is, check out this Scientific American article for some great graphics that show which products each type of plastic usually appears in.

It seems innately apparent that they would be bad for the environment, right? So, why is nothing being done about it?

I had the same question. It’s a complicated issue because of the ethical boundaries and the overlap that occurs between us and other species. As an emerging field of study, research methods and findings are still being developed, but it’s rather limited due to the nature of the research.

Weirdly enough, you can’t just ask people to eat plastic to see if it will harm them.

That’s why animals have been the main subjects of studies thus far, and the issue is even further complicated by the intricate food web that lets us follow the microplastics and their effects from the smallest marine organism all the way up to humans.

Along the way, chemicals that have adhered to the plastics can bioaccumulate and have the potential to leach into an organism’s bloodstream. Microplastics quickly move up the food chain until they reach us, giving them the potential to wreak havoc for the seafood industry, human health in general,  and endanger the many communities that rely predominantly on the ocean for protein.

So, what can you do?

             REFUSE- Say no to straws and other single-use plastics.

             REUSE- Bring reusables in order to say no to single-use forks, coffee mugs, cups, straws, and silverware. Reuse spaghetti and soup (or any) jars to store food, and you can even take them to a Whole Foods or Sprout’s to buy bulk foods)

             REDUCE- There are a number of things you can work on reducing in order to lessen your impact on this earth. You can reduce your carbon or water footprint. You can even reduce your consumption of packaged goods wrapped in plastic simply by opting for more produce at a farmer’s market.  

             RECYCLE-Make sure you learn about your area’s recycling policies so you know what you can and can’t recycle (see my blog about the little numbers in the recycling symbol on the bottom of plastic bottles and tubs. If you want to go even further and compost, check out this blog to learn more about it. It’s easy to accidentally recycle the wrong thing and that could contaminate a whole batch of would-be recyclables, so it’s important to get to know your local policies.  

If you’re looking for reusable alternatives to make your life a little more plastic-free, check out The Package Free Shop, a zero waste lifestyle online and retail store.

If you’re interested in seeing some photos of the research being conducted (neon plastic pellets being consumed by corals and transparent fish), I interviewed some graduate students and professors at Duke University last year to write an article on their research. It was the first major study indicating that marine animals might be choosing microplastics because of the taste of the chemicals that adhere to them.

I hope you have a wonderful, hopefully plastic-free day!

S.