Using these containers, consumers are exposed to the ingestion of hundreds of plastic particles scattered in their drink, reveals a Chinese study.
by Sylvie Burnouf
At each sip, its small dose of microplastics. At the time of take -out drinks and single -use cups, Chinese researchers from the University of Sichuan in Chengdu have undertaken to assess whether these containers, certainly practical, could represent for consumers a source of exposure to microplastics . Their results, The government has set the maximum authorized plastic content in cups Single use from January 2022, with the objective of “tending towards a zero value” at 1 er January 2026… provided that the technical progress made by then make it possible to identify alternatives .
However, if they reduce plastic use in a global way, in fact reducing environmental pollution, cardboard cups with film PE are not a solution to reduce consumer exposure to microplastics, reveal the Quantifications of Chinese researchers.
a release of hundreds of microplastics
The latter have compared three types of cups – those in white plastic composed of polypropylene, those in translucent plastic based on terephthalate polyethylene, and those in cardboard, covered with PE -, reproducing in a series of experiments certain conditions of real life: hot or cold drink, agitation linked to transport, more or less long break time … The results show that, whatever the situations tested, there was a release of hundreds of microplastics.
This study adds “a stone to the building which is being erected on multiple exhibition sources” to microplastics, Pointe Muriel Mercier-Bonin, Director of Research Inrae in the Toxalim unit in Toulouse, who did not participate in this work.
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