What you can do to stop plastic polluting your body

LIKE many others, I’m increasingly concerned about the growing threat posed by plastic pollution.

It’s not just the plastic bags that scatter the hedges when I go for walks, but microplastics, the tiny particles of the stuff that are literally everywhere and are increasingly seen as a major health risk.

Direct evidence for this came from a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers in Italy examined samples of plaque (the fatty deposits that line your blood vessels) from patients who’d recently had surgery to remove it. Nearly 60% of the samples contained microplastics — furthermore, the patients with microplastics in their plaque were nearly five times more likely to have a heart attack, a stroke or to die in the 34 months after surgery.

The researchers think the microplastics cause chronic inflammation, which in turn causes heart disease and stroke.

Analysis revealed that most of the particles were made of polyethylene, typically found in food packaging and plastic shopping bags; or polyvinyl chloride (PVC), used in plastic bottles.

There’s not a lot you can do to steer clear of microplastics, though at home my wife Clare and I avoid heating or microwaving anything in a plastic container. We also drink tap water rather than bottled.

You could also boil tap water for a couple of minutes, then filter it when it cools. A new study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters found this removed more than 80% of microplastics, particularly if the water is hard.

That’s because boiling releases calcium carbonate (i.e. limescale) from the water, which then traps the microplastics, which you can then filter out.