Plastic Health Alert!
- Staff
- Jan 17, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 17, 2024
HEALTH ALERT!
Hot food and beverage in plastic containers = poison in your body. Exposure to the toxic chemicals in plastic have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and endocrine system disruption (Smithsonian Magazine).
K-cups, to go coffee cups, takeout containers all contain plastic or are plastic-lined. Take your own reusable containers instead. Oregon's Reusable Container Law allows restaurants to begin honoring your reusables July 1, 2024.
DON'T NUKE PLASTIC!
Plastic may not melt in your microwave, but chemicals leach into your food and drink when heated (Science Alert). If a container is labelled "microwave safe," that only means the container will hold its shape when heated in the microwave (Scienceline). Replace your kitchen plastics with glass, stainless steel, wood, or silicone.
Bye-bye Tupperware - Hello Mason jars!
Microplastics and nanoplastics have been found in human blood, breastmilk, placentas, babies’ feces, the brains of humans and mice, the heart, and male reproductive organs. Microplastics have also been found on every corner of the earth, including the top of Mt. Everest, in the guts of sea creatures almost 11,000 meters down in the ocean, and embedded in Arctic ice, (Science News/Science Alert/Live Science/Association of American Medical Colleges).
A recent study found that people with nanoplastics in their cardiovascular system were 4.5 times more likely to develop heart attacks, stroke, and death. Adding probiotics help rid your body of microplastics (Science News).
PLASTIC FAST FACTS
There are over 16,000 chemicals used in the makeup of plastics (Smithsonian Magazine)
Researchers don’t have hazard information for more than 10,000 of the chemicals in plastics (Smithsonian Magazine)
Humans produce about 400 million metric tons of plastic waste each year (United Nations).
Plastic does not break down. It simply breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, until it becomes microplastic, where we can simply no longer see it (National Geographic).
Microplastics have been present in the world’s oceans since 1960. If we continue at the current rate of plastic consumption, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 (World Wildlife Fund UK).
