Blog and Resources

MASSPIRG May 3, 2022
For the first time ever, microplastics have been found in the lungs of living people. Humans are exposed to plastics in the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink, so much so that we consume up to a credit card’s worth of plastic each week. Evidence is mounting that plastics impact our health, and we need to take action before it’s too late. Donate today.

Microplastics are everywhere on our planet — from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of our deepest ocean. Given the scope of the contamination, human exposure to microplastics was bound to be inevitable. But the question now is: How will this impact our health?

Here are a few things we know right now:

In March, scientists discovered microplastics in human blood, which demonstrates that these tiny particles can travel around the body and get caught in vital organs.
People have been known to develop disease after being exposed to high levels of microplastics.
There is concern among the medical community, as microplastics have been shown to damage human cells in the laboratory.
There’s no time to waste when it comes to tackling our plastic waste crisis — and one of the most immediate things we can do is ban the single-use plastics that we just don’t need.
Of all microplastic samples taken from human lungs, the two most prominent kinds of plastics found were those used to make the single-use plastic bottles and plastic packaging we see all around us every day.

Nothing we use for a few minutes should persist in the environment for hundreds of years — especially when it makes its way into our bodies and threatens our health.

1. Damian Carrington, “Microplastics found deep in lungs of living people for first time,” The Guardian, April 6, 2022.
2. Reuters Staff, “You may be eating a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Reuters, June 11, 2019.
3.- 7 Damian Carrington, “Microplastics found deep in lungs of living people for first time,” The Guardian, April 6, 2022.
8. “Beyond Plastic,” U.S. PIRG, last accessed April 13, 2022. More facts.