Glass bottles containing water, soft drinks, beer or wine contain more microplastics That the equivalent in plastic bottles, according to a surprising study published on Friday by the French Food Safety Agency.
Researchers have detected these tiny pieces of plastic, mostly invisible, throughout the world: from the air we breathe to the food we eat, as well as within the human body.
Although there is no direct evidence that this massive plastic presence is detrimental to human health, this finding has opened a new research field.
Guillaume Duflos, research director of the French Food Security Agency ANSES, told the AFP that the objective was “Investigate the amount of microplastics in different types of drinks sold in France and examine the impact that different containers can have.”
The researchers found an average of around 100 microplastic particles per liter in soda glass bottles, lemonade, iced tea and beer.
That represents between five and fifty times greater than the rate detected in plastic bottles or metal cans.
“We expected the opposite result,” Doctoral Student iseline Chaib told AFP, who conducted the research.
The samples detected appeared mostly in the covers of the containers.
“We detect that, in the glass, the particles detected They had the same shape, color and polymer composition – therefore, the same plastic – that the paint outside the tapas that seal the glass bottles”, He explained.
The painting in the tapas also had “small scratches, invisible to the naked eye, probably due to friction between the tapas when they were stored,” said the team of researchers.
In the case of water, both natural and mineral, the amount of microplastics was relatively low in all cases, between 4.5 particles per liter in glass bottles and 1.6 particles in plastic.
The wine also contained few microplastics, even in glass bottles with tapas.
Duflos said that the reason for this discrepancy “must still be explained.”
However, The soft drinks contained about 30 microplastics per liter, lemonade 40 and beer around 60.
Because there is no reference level for a potentially toxic amount of microplastics, it is currently not possible to affirm if these figures represent a health risk, Anses said.
But beverage manufacturers could easily reduce the amount of microplastics released by bottles’ tapas, he added.
The agency tested a cleaning method that involved blowing the lids with air, then rinsing them with water and alcohol, which reduced contamination by 60%.
The study published by ANSES appeared last month on the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis.