Ingested microplastics: Do humans eat one credit card per week?

Abstract

Ingested Microplastic (MP) particles can harm the human body. Estimations of the total mass of ingested MP particles correspond to 50 plastic bags per year (Bai et al., 2022), one credit card per week (Gruber et al., 2022), or a median value of 4.1 μg/week for adults (Mohamed Nor et al., 2021). The first two estimations are based on an analysis (Senathirajah et al., 2021) that predicts a total ingested mass of MP particles m_i,MP of 0.1–5 g/week. This work revisits and evaluates this calculation and compares its results and methods to Mohamed Nor et al. (2021). Senathirajah combines data of averaged MP particle masses ${\overline{m}}_{\mathrm{MP}}$ from papers that reported MP particle sizes and MP particle counts n_MP in shellfish, salt, beer, and water based on other papers that detected MP particles. Combined with the estimated weekly consumption of those consumables, they compute m_i,MP. This work raises some serious issues of Senathirajah in the way they combine data and they obtained particle sizes. It concludes that Senathirajah overestimates m_i,MP by several orders of magnitude and that m_i,MP can be considered as a rather irrelevant factor for the toxic effects of MP particles on the human body.