In the name of vegetables. are you injecting plastic into your body and how harmful is it to your health?
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| Plastic vegetables are you injecting into your body |
Plastic pollution is a major legacy of modern lifestyles.
But it now so widespread that particles of it are even showing up in the vegetables we eat.
Small particles of plastic microplastics are embedded in every part of the planet. They are embedded in Antarctic sea ice. In the guts of marine animals living in deep ocean trenches. & in drinking water around the world.
Plastic pollution has-been found on the beaches of remote. Uninhabited islands & has also been shown in seawater samples. A study has estimated that there are about 24.4 trillion components of small plastic particles microplastics in the upper parts of the world oceans.
But they are not just everywhere in water. They are also widely found on Earth in soil & can even be found in our food. We are unknowingly ingesting tiny particles of plastic with almost every sip.
In 2022: A study by the Environmental Working Group.
A non profit environmental research organization. Found that sewage sludge had contaminated nearly two million acres 80937 of U.S. crops. square kilometres have polluted the Earth with man made chemicals that will never break down. So called perpetual chemicals & are commonly found in plastic products. & do not break down under normal environmental conditions.
Sewage sludge is the substance left after cleaning the sewage of cities. Because its residues are expensive to dispose of and also rich in organic nutrients. They are used as organic fertilizers in the United States and Europe.
In the latter: It is used in such a way as to promote the economy in accordance with the European Union guidelines by partially reusing the waste. It is estimated that 800000 to 100,000,000 tons of sewage sludge is produced in Europe every year. & about 40 Percent of this is spread on fields.
According to a study by researchers at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom UK European agricultural systems could become the largest global reservoir of microplastics due to the use of this waste as organic fertilizer. This means that 31,000 to 42000 tonnes of microplastics. Or 86 trillion to 710 trillion microplastic particles. Pollute European farmland every year.
The researchers study found that 650 million microplastics tiny and very fine particles. measuring between one millimeter and 5 millimeters. enter sewage sludge in a sewage sludge in South Wales. United Kingdom every day. taken to the treatment plant.
All these plastic particles end up in the sewage sludge residue. Which makes up about one percent of the total weight of the sludge instead of going with clean water.
Catherine Wilson. A co author of the study and deputy director of the Hydro Environmental Research Center at Cardiff University. Says the number of microplastics reaching farmland is probably an underestimate. Microplastics are every where & often so small that we can not see them.
And microplastics can last even longer in this environment. A recent study by soil scientists at Phillips University Marburg found microplastics up to 90 centimeters 35 inches below the soil surface in two agricultural fields. These were the fields where Savage Sludge was last dumped 34 years ago.
Plowing had brought the plastic deep into these fields.
James Lofty: Lead author of the Cardiff study and a PhD research student at the Hydro Environmental Research Centre. Says the concentration of microplastics on farmland in Europe is equivalent to the amount found in surface waters.
According to research by Wilson & Lofty. the United kingdom has the highest concentration of microplastics in Europe. With between 500 & 1000 microplastics ending up on farms there every year.
Lofty adds that the practice of using sewage sludge as fertilizer. Along with creating a large stockpile of microplastics on Earth. Is exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis in our oceans.
Eventually: microplastics will end up in waterways. As rain washes the top layer of soil into streams or washes into groundwater. The biggest source of plastic pollution in our rivers & oceans is from this runoff he says.
A study by scientists in the Canadian province of Ontario found that 99% of microplastics were transported from where sewage sludge was dumped into the aquatic environment.
Environmental pollution.
A report by the United Kingdom Environment Agency found that sewage produced for England farms.
It will take decades to rid the environment completely of plastic.
According to research by Professor Willie Pijnenberg. The release of plastic particles does not appear to inhibit crop growth. But not much is known about how this accumulation of plastic in our food affects our own health.
More research is needed to understand this. Pijnenberg says: Especially as the problem grows. & more research will be needed.
He also says that it will take decades to clean the environment from plastic. Although the risk is not very high at this time. It is not a good idea to have permanent chemicals on farm soil.They will stay there & then they can become a threat.
Adverse health effects.
Although the effects of eating plastic on human health are not yet fully understood. There is already some research that suggests it may be harmful. Research shows that chemicals added during the manufacture of plastics can affect the human body endocrine system & the hormones that regulate our growth.
Chemicals found in plastic can cause other health problems. Including cancer. Heart disease & impaired fetal development. According to an analysis by researchers at the University of Hull in the united kingdom, high concentrations of microplastics can damage human cells cells which can lead to inflammation & allergies.
The researchers reviewed 17 previous studies that looked at the toxic effects of microplastics on human cells. The analysis compared the amount of cell damaging microplastics in laboratory tests with assessments of people levels through drinking water. Seafood & salt.
The review found that the amounts added to plants can cause allergic like reactions in people and trigger cell death. But they can also cause damage to the immune response. It can also damage the walls & oxidative stress.
Our research shows that we are consuming microplastics at levels consistent with harmful effects on cells that. In many cases are detrimental to health. Says the study lead author & a researcher at Hull York Medical School. Avangelos Danopoulos. is the initial act of impressing.
We know that microplastics can cross cell barriers & break them down. We know that they can cause oxidative stress on cells. Which is the beginning of tissue damage.
Ban on use of sewage sludge
Since 1995: The Netherlands has banned the dumping of sewage sludge on farmland. The country initially began incinerating the sludge. But after problems at the Amsterdam incineration plant. it began to be exported to Britain where it was used as fertilizer on farms.
Switzerland banned the use of the fungus in 2003. saying it contains harmful substances & many species of pathogenic organisms produced by industry & private households.
The USA state of Maine also banned its use in April 2022. After environmental officials found high levels of persistent chemicals in farm soil. crops & water. High levels of the same chemicals PFAS were also detected in the blood of farmers. Widespread contamination forced the discontinuation of its use in many farms.
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A new law in the United States state of Maine also prohibits composting sludge with other organic materials.
But Cardiff University Wilson also says a total ban on using sewage sludge or sludge as fertilizer is not necessary because a ban is not necessarily the best solution. Instead it could encourage farmers to use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers made from natural gas.
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