“We’ve choked this planet with plastic, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans—and we’ve no idea at all about costs for public health,” said a British lawmaker.

By Kenny Stancil.  Pubished 3-24-2022 by Common Dreams

Microplastics from the Patapsco River are pictured at the laboratory of Dr. Lance Yonkos in the Department of Environmental Science & Technology at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md., on Feb. 6, 2015. Photo: Chesapeake Bay Program/flickr/CC

A team of toxicologists found microplastics in nearly 80% of the healthy adult blood samples it analyzed, marking the first time that tiny polymer fragments—measuring less than 5mm in size—have been detected in human blood, The Guardian reported Thursday.

Using techniques that allowed them to detect particles as small as 0.0007mm, the scientists, whose research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International, examined blood samples provided by 22 anonymous donors in good health and discovered microplastics in 17 of them. Continue reading →