Nanoparticle Pollution: Water bottles are much more contaminated than we think

Bottled water was thought to be safer than tap water, but apparently that’s not necessarily the case. According to a study published January 9 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there are many more plastic nanoparticles than we think in bottled water. On average we are talking about 240,000 particles per liter of analyzed water, i.e. 100 to 1,000 times more than previously reported.

A new, more advanced detection method

This discovery was made by the team of researchers led by Dr. Wei Min from Columbia University in New York. They used a brand new optical method to detect and characterize plastic micro- and nanoparticles. in order to precisely evaluate the quantity of nanoplastics present in bottles of 3 different brands.

Obviously, unfortunately, we do not know the names of the people tested. The scientists decided not to disclose them for the following reason: “We believe that all bottled water contains nanoplastics, so highlighting some of them may be considered unfair”explained Beizhan Yan, co-author of the study.

What we know, however, is that until now the detection of fragments had to focus on sizes larger than a micrometer (μm), unfortunately the finer and smaller particles were difficult to detect. And that’s exactly the problem: more present than the others, the latter represent 90% of the pollution in bottled water.

It remains to be seen whether French bottled water is as polluted as American bottled water…

What to do to avoid them?

What you need to know is that the nanoparticles present in water bottles are so small that they can pass very easily into the blood and reach organs such as the heart, brain or lungs. Worse still, they might even pass into the placenta…

Although it is difficult to establish in the long term what damage exposure to these plastic particles could cause to the human body, avenues are already being explored. According to some scientists, regular exposure could exacerbate the inflammatory response and therefore possibly increase the severity of diseases.

But what can we do to avoid this? According to Beizhan Yan, you should drink tap water: “ If people are concerned about nanoplastics in bottled water, it is reasonable to consider alternatives, such as tap water.”

But while large and medium-sized French cities have access to good quality tap water, residents of smaller towns are not as lucky. According to UFC Que Choisir, 2.8 million French people have water contaminated with pesticides, nitrates, bacterial contamination, arsenic, even lead… Bottled water therefore becomes their only alternative…

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