Tiny particles, big problem

The prevalence of nanoplastics in bottled water is raising alarms

- CORINNE PURTILL AND SUSANNE RUST

It seems anywhere scientists look for plastic, they find it: from the ice in Antarctica, to the first bowel movement produced by newborn babies.

Now, researchers are finding that the amount of microscopic plastics floating in bottled drinking water is far greater than initially believed.

Using sophisticated imaging technology, scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty laboratory examined water samples from three popular brands (they won’t say which ones) and found hundreds of thousands of bits of plastic per litre of water.

Ninety per cent of those plastics were small enough to qualify as nanoplastics: microscopic flecks so small that they can be absorbed into human cells and tissue, as well as cross the blood-brain barrier.

The research, which was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, raises new concerns about the potentially harmful health effects — and prevalence — of nanoplastics. The researchers found that the quantity of such particles was 10 to 100 times greater than previously estimated.

“For a long time before this study, I actually thought that what was inside bottled water (in terms of) nanoplastics was just a few hundred PET particles,” said Naixin Qian, a Columbia chemistry graduate student and the study’s lead author. “It turns out to be much more than that.” PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, is a type of clear plastic that is commonly used for single-use water bottles.