New Study Shows We’re Swallowing 5g of Plastic Every Week Unknowingly

What if I told you to swallow your credit card right now?

People like me can certainly stand to gain from that, since it will help stop me from spending so much money.

Okay, jokes aside, no one in their right mind would do that.

Other than the fact that’s dangerous, it’s also plastic. Who knows how harmful it could be to your body?

Well, here’s a shocking fact. You’re already doing it every week.

And you probably don’t know about it.

5g of Plastic Ingested Every Week

Unfortunately, I’m not kidding, nor am I exaggerating.

A recent research has discovered that people are ingesting about 5 grams of plastic every week – through the air breathed in, the food eaten, and most of all, the water drunk.

In case you thought 5 grams was very little, as I mentioned earlier, that’s equivalent to eating a credit card. Every week.

Studies have discovered that microplastics exist in everything we are ingesting, mostly due to environmental pollution.

Out of the 52 studies included in the research, 33 focused on plastic consumption through food and beverages. Some of the common food and beverages that have been discovered to contain microplastics are water, beer, shellfish, and salt.

To makes things worse, staple foods such as milk, rice, wheat, corn, bread, pasta and oils have not yet been studied for microplastic contamination.

So, the numbers thus far could be an underestimate.

Singapore’s Water Is Safe

However, Masagos Zukifli, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, claimed Parliament last year that Singapore’s water supply is free from microplastics due to monitoring effects by the national water agency PUB.

Microplastics are said to be removed via reverse osmosis membranes at Singapore’s Newater and desalination plants.

The minister also added that PUB ensures all used water goes through treatment at water reclamation plants so that it meets internationally recognised discharge standards.

To minimise seawater contamination to the fullest, microplastics are removed as sludge and incinerated, leaving only the most minuscule amount discharged into the sea.

Save The Earth

It appears that our pollution of the environment is coming back to bite us.

Marco Lambertini, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International director-general, said that “These findings must serve as a wake-up call to governments. If we don’t want plastic in our bodies, we need to stop the millions of tonnes of plastic that continue leaking into nature every year”.

Well, hopefully Robert Downey Jr can pull an Iron Man and save our world once more.