The average bottle fed baby could be ingesting 1.6 million plastic microparticles per day during the first twelve months of his/her life

The 1950s saw the exponential rise of the use of plastics as it replaced the previously used materials. There were a couple of factors that led to this rise in popularity of the material which included being convenient and durable. However, these very features have turned out to be hazardous for us now.

Scientists studying the material gave the red alert as early as the 1970s, however, at that time the findings of plastics detrimental impact didn’t get much attention. Only a decade ago have we started to understand the damage that this mass produced and used material is causing not just on our natural environment but our health as well.

It has already been well established that microplastics have made it to our food chain. According to studies we eat a credit card’s worth of plastic every week. This consumption unfortunately is not limited to adults alone.

According to researchers in Ireland, bottle fed babies are prone to ingesting more than a million pieces of microplastics every day. This is how deep rooted the issue has become.

The team looked at the rate of microplastics release in ten different types of baby bottles and accessories made from polypropylene, the most commonly used plastic for food containers. They also followed official guidelines from the World Health Organization with regards to sterilization and formula preparation conditions.

During the test period of over twenty-one days, the researchers found that the baby bottles released between 1.3 and 16.2 million plastic microparticles per litre. Based on this data the team modeled the potential global infant exposure to microplastics via bottle feeding, based on national average rates of breast feeding. No surprise here that the result didn’t present a pretty picture. The average bottle fed baby could be ingesting 1.6 million plastic microparticles per day during the first twelve months of his/her life.

The research has been published in the Nature Food journal and according to the authors, sterilization and exposure to high water temperatures had the biggest effect on the release of microplastics, going from 0.6 million particles per litre on average at 25C to 55 million/litre at 95C.

Originally published at https://pk.mashable.com on October 23, 2020.