Here’s some bitter news to sip on.
Microplastics are impossible to avoid, lurking in everything from the food you eat and the water you drink to the clothes you wear and the cosmetics you apply.
Now, a new study suggests that one everyday habit could flood your body with tens of thousands more of these tiny plastic particles each year — and your health might be paying the price.
Researchers at Concordia University in Canada analyzed more than 140 scientific articles and found that the average person ingests between 39,000 and 52,000 microplastic particles annually.
But if you regularly drink from single-use plastic water bottles, you could be swallowing an extra 90,000 of these pesky polymers every year compared to those who stick to tap water.
Microplastic exposure happens when particles break off from the bottle’s inner surface and leach into the water, especially when the bottle is squeezed or heated.
“Drinking water from plastic bottles is fine in an emergency but it is not something that should be used in daily life,” Sarah Sajedi, an environmental management expert and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
That might be tough news to swallow. In 2024, bottled water remained America’s top packaged drink for the ninth consecutive year, beating out carbonated sodas and fruit beverages, according to industry data.
A staggering 16.2 billion gallons were consumed, a 2% jump from 2023. That’s enough to fill more than 24,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“Education is the most important action we can take,” Sajedi said. “People need to understand that the issue is not acute toxicity — it is chronic toxicity.”
Scientists are still working to understand exactly how microplastics affect human health, but one thing is clear: they don’t just pass through the body.
Once ingested, these shards — often smaller than a grain of rice — can enter the bloodstream and accumulate in vital organs and tissues, including the heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, testicles and placenta.
Studies have even found that microplastics are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, a threshold experts say is “very difficult” to breach.
Inside the body, research suggests these particles may trigger chronic inflammation, damage cells, disrupt hormones and interfere with the delicate balance of bacteria in the gut.
While the long-term effects aren’t fully understood, early studies on animals and human cells have linked microplastic exposure to cancer, infertility, heart disease, lung conditions and other serious health risks.
Sajedi and her team are now calling for standardized testing to better measure microplastic levels in products like single-use water bottles and for stronger policies to limit plastic contamination in bottled water.
In January, the International Bottled Water Association addressed growing concerns, noting that bottled water is just one of thousands of products sold in plastic packaging.
“The bottled water industry is committed to providing consumers with the safest and highest quality healthy hydration products,” the group said in a statement. “The industry supports conducting additional research on this important issue.”
