The bottled water it can contain hundreds of thousands of fragments plasticwhich have significant effects on human health, according to research published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

As the researchers found, on average one liter of bottled water contained approx 240,000 detectable plastic fragments, i.e. ten to 100 times more than previous estimates.

It’s about nanoplasticsso tiny that they can pass through the intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream and then into instrumentssuch as the heart and brain.

They can pass through the placenta and even into their bodies embryos.

The new, disturbing study

Plastics in bottled water were first identified in a 2018 study which measured an average of 325 particles per liter, while later studies multiplied this number, although the estimates stopped at sizes below one micrometer, the limit of nanoplastics.

THE new study uses a technique called stimulated Raman scattering microscopy and was invented by one of the study’s authors, biophysicist at the University of Columbia, Wei Min. The researchers also created an algorithm based on the data to interpret the results. They then tested three brands of bottled water sold in the US and analyzed plastic particles as small as 100 nanometers. They found 110,000 to 370,000 particles in each liter, 90% of which were nanoplastics and the rest microplastics.

One of the plastics they identified was polyethylene terephthalate or PET. This was not surprising since it is what many water bottles are made of and it probably gets into the water as pieces come off when the bottle is pressed or exposed to heat.

The detection was also very extensive polyamidea type of nylon, probably derived from plastics filters used to purify water before bottling.

Other common ones the researchers found are used in various industrial processes, including polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, and polymethyl methacrylate.

Worrying was that the seven types of plastics the researchers looked for represented only 10% of all of nanoparticles that they found in the samples, while the rest they don’t know what they are. If they are all nanoplastics, that means their number could be tens of millions per liter.

The research team also plans to look at tap water, which has also been shown to contain microplastics, although much less than bottled water.

Beizan Yan, one of the study’s authors, an environmental chemist at the University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Columbiais also working on a program to study the microplastics and nanoplastics that end up in sewage when people wash their clothes, and according to his calculations so far it’s millions per ten-kilogram load

. He is even designing filters with his team to reduce pollution from domestic and commercial washing machines. The team is also working with environmental health experts to measure nanoplastics in human tissues and examine their developmental and neurological effects.