MOTHER BEAT 4-YEAR-OLD TO DEATH: POLICE

KOLLAM: A four-year-old girl died on Sunday after she was allegedly beaten up by her mother for refusing to eat in Kerala’s Kollam district, police said. The girl was taken to a hospital where she breathed her last. Her mother, who works as a nurse, has been taken into custody, the police told news agency Press Trust of India (PTI). There were injury marks on the body, they said, adding that probe was on to find whether she was assaulted. The father of the child was also being interrogated, they added. Police on Sunday registered a case of unnatural death in connection with the death. “We are awaiting the post mortem report to know the reason of death. We will be taking action accordingly,” the police stated. NEW DELHI : The growing use of plastic is taking a toll not just on the environment but also public health. People inhale, ingest or absorb microplastics through the skin, which can cause serious damage to health, say doctors.

The sources of exposure vary widely, from packaging material of food and beverages to cutlery, home essentials, personal care items, toys and paints, among others. How much plastic leaches into food and beverages depends on several factors, including the storage time and temperature.

Since plastics are widely used in industry, exposure may leads to a number of health conditions. “Single-use plastics are largely the low-density variety, which can be quite harmful for human health. Equally harmful are the additives that are used for colouring or changing its structural strength,” said Dr N Chandrasekaran, director, Centre for Nanobiotechnology, Vellore Institute of Technology in Tamil Nadu.

Low density plastics are soft and light weight and get converted to micro- or nano-plastics, which easily enter the body. Microplastics are between 0.05mm and 5mm in length while nanoplastics are 1,000 times smaller.

The toxicity, persistence and excretion of nanoplastics are dependent on the size as micro/ nano plastics larger than 100 nm (nanometer) get accumulated in the gut and excreted with faeces, but ones smaller than 50 nm pass through the intestinal wall, enter tissues and organs, affecting circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous and endocrine systems.

“The single-use plastic that we see around gets converted to nano plastics and do damage at the cellular level. The cells inienter tially don’t recognise plastic as food but since they are dependent on protein for their growth, over time the protein absorbs nano plastics layer by layer until it is mimicked as food for cells. It gradually gets degraded inside the cell and gets converted into a component called styrene, which is a possible carcinogen,” says Chandrasekaran, who specialises in research on nanoplastics.

The low-density plastics such as polystyrene with additives such as bisphenol A (BPA) and Phthalates that are used to increase its plasticity are the most commonly used variants, and are broadly labeled as endocrine disruptors, with developmental, reproductive and even neurological effects.

Even in low doses, microplastics are harmful. Storing in plastic containers, especially food, is of concern as the chemicals have been shown to leach into the contents. The chances of leaching grow with higher temperature.

“Low dose is also risky as polymers (large molecules) depolymerise (degrade) to its monomer (single) units, which is toxic as these micro/nano particles easily