In Paris in 2015, researchers discovered microplastic falling from the air, which they estimated deposits three to 10 tonnes of fibres on the city each year, and that it was also present in the air in people’s homes. The scale of global microplastic contamination is only starting to become clear, with studies in Germany finding fibres and fragments in all of the 24 beer brands they tested, as well as in honey and sugar.

Prof Richard Thompson, at Plymouth University, UK, told Orb: “It became clear very early on that the plastic would release those chemicals and that actually, the conditions in the gut would facilitate really quite rapid release.” His research has shown microplastics are found in a third of fish caught in the UK. Microplastics are also known to contain and absorb toxic chemicals and research on wild animals shows they are released in the body. Plastic fibres found in tap water across the world “If it’s impacting, then how do we think that it’s not going to somehow impact us?”

“We have enough data from looking at wildlife, and the impacts that it’s having on wildlife, to be concerned,” said Dr Sherri Mason, a microplastic expert at the State University of New York in Fredonia, who supervised the analyses for Orb. Previous work has been largely focused on plastic pollution in the oceans, which suggests people are eating microplastics via contaminated seafood. The new analyses indicate the ubiquitous extent of microplastic contamination in the global environment.

The average number of fibres found in each 500ml sample ranged from 4.8 in the US to 1.9 in Europe. Lebanon and India had the next highest rates.Įuropean nations including the UK, Germany and France had the lowest contamination rate, but this was still 72%. The US had the highest contamination rate, at 94%, with plastic fibres found in tap water sampled at sites including Congress buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters, and Trump Tower in New York.

Tap plastics