Plain old water could be responsible for making plastics harmful to people, according to a new study that portends significant consequences for human health.
The study, published Thursday in the prominent scientific journal Nature, found chemical reactions between water and six types of fossil fuel-based plastic created particles that damaged red blood cells and proteins in laboratory tests.
As plastic in the body breaks down into smaller and smaller bits — known as microplastics and nanoplastics — the potential danger increases, said Wei Min, a Columbia University chemist who co-authored the study.
“Is this phenomenon 5% responsible or 90% responsible for the health effects we are seeing, I can’t answer,” Min said during an interview. “But I would be surprised if it doesn’t play any role.”
Min’s study comes amid increasing concerns about plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, the source of drinking water for 40 million people in the United States and Canada, including nearly 7 million in the Chicago area.
The baiduhai is documenting the hazards in “Great Waste in the Great Lakes,” a series about plastic pollution threatening the health and environment of Americans and Canadians who depend on the world’s largest source of fresh surface water.
Interactions between water and plastic could help explain why other studies have shown microplastics trigger inflammation, which contributes to a variety of diseases that together account for more than half of all deaths globally.
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For now it’s impossible to prevent these reactions within the body. Human blood is about 50% water and cells are up to 80% water, Min noted.
“This challenges the reigning theory that plastic is inert (meaning it doesn’t prompt chemical or biological reactions),” said Sherri “Sam” Mason, a chemist at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, who studies plastic pollution in freshwater.
“I think it highlights the need for truly biodegradable plastic, rather than what industry increasingly puts out into the marketplace,” said Mason, who wasn’t involved in the new study but was one of the first researchers to find microplastics throughout the Great Lakes.
Scientists also are finding microplastics in nearly every part of the human body — the brain, the heart, ovaries and testicles. The mostly invisible bits course through blood and pass from mother to child through the placenta and breast milk.
Rapidly emerging research suggests the ingestion and inhalation of microplastics, nearly all of which are made from climate-changing fossil fuels, contribute to or outright trigger heart disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, impaired fertility and premature births, among other health problems.
Min and 11 colleagues, including researchers from the University of California Berkeley and Rutgers University, found water molecules behave differently when coming into contact with microplastics. Water essentially acts as a catalyst that spontaneously creates particles known as hydroxyl radicals, unstable molecules linked to aging and disease.
Two common types of plastic — polyethylene and polypropylene, used widely to make food containers, packaging, milk jugs and bottle caps — produced the most hydroxyl radicals detected by the researchers. The finding suggests certain plastics could be reformulated or phased out of consumer products, Min said.
“Our bodies have natural defense mechanisms,” said Phoebe Stapleton, a Rutgers professor of pharmacology and toxicology who co-authored the study. “But depending on other exposures we’ve had, our genetics and lifestyle choices, all of these (hydroxyl radicals) could build up to a point where we can’t handle them anymore.”
More than 8 billion tons of plastic already pollute the Earth. Manufacturers, including the world’s largest oil companies, are planning to triple production by 2060.
Craig Davis, senior director of plastics chemistry at the American Chemistry Council
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, the industry’s chief trade group, said in an email that the study “offers a novel look at microplastics outside the body.”But, Davis said, “it does not establish whether the observed effects occur within the body’s complex biological systems or at actual human exposure levels to microplastics. Additionally, limited information about the particles tested in the version provided also makes the findings difficult to fully evaluate. Those gaps matter before drawing conclusions about human health.”
Min acknowledged the study’s limitations. Still, he said, the findings should help direct future research.
He noted a group of Chinese researchers recently found that stirring plastic waste into hot water prompted similar chemical changes that broke down the polymers into building blocks of new plastics, raising the possibility of a less-toxic, more effective way to keep plastic litter out of the environment.