Microplastics: Fearmongering Buzzword Or Actual Cause For Concern

It’s estimated that 1.3 billion plastic bottles are sold around the world every single day. If you piled them all up, they would create a mountain half the size of the Eiffel Tower. 

At the head of the plastic production empire is Coca-Cola, as it is the world’s largest branded producer of plastic, and the company’s annual waste in the oceans is expected to reach 602 million kilograms by 2030. 

But whether your refreshing beverage of choice is a sugary soda or sparkling water, you might be getting an unexpected dose of microplastics along with it. Researchers at Columbia and Rutgers universities have found that in just one liter of bottled water, there is an average of 240,000 nanoplastic particles. 

Understandably, this information sent the internet into a frenzy, and microplastics became a buzzword seemingly overnight. So Bored Panda got in touch with three experts to set the record straight: is this simply fearmongering, or are there reasonable concerns that we should all have about the particles we’re ingesting?