Researchers detect microplastics in meat, milk and blood of farm animals

In the Netherlands, scientists at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA) have found microplastic particles in beef and pork for the first time. They also found particles in the blood of cows and pigs on farms, UK-based media outlet, The Guardian, reporting referring to a study. The contamination has been detected in three-quarters of meat and milk products tested and every blood sample in their pilot study.

During the study, the particles were also found in every sample of animal pellet feed tested. It indicates the potential route of the alarming contamination. Another possible route can be the packaging as the food products were wrapped in plastic.

In March, VUA researchers reported microplastics in human blood for the first time. They followed the same process to conduct the study on animal products. The report mentioned that the discovery of the particles in blood shows "they can travel around the body and may lodge in organs".

The researchers have to analysewhether or not the particles impact human or farm animal health.

As quoted by the report, Dr Heather Leslie at VUA said: "When you're measuringblood, you're finding out the absorbed dose from all the different exposure routes: air, water, food, et cetera. So it's very interesting because it immediately tells you what's penetrating into the river of life."

Image:This photo taken on October 14, 2021 shows a researcher examining a sediment sample collected by a "Smith-McIntyre" grab machine in the sea, at Japanese marine-station network Jambio's laboratory in Shimoda, Shizuoka prefecture. Credit: AFP

Microplastics in oceans, air and human body

Recently, the news agency AFP reported that from ocean depths to mountain peaks, humans have littered the planet with tiny shards of plastic. The report claimed that We have even absorbed these microplastics into our bodies - with uncertain implications.

Images of plastic pollution have become familiar: a turtle suffocated by a shopping bag, water bottles washed up on beaches, or the monstrous "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" of floating detritus.

Millions of tonnes of plastic produced every year, largely from fossil fuels, make their way into the environment and degrade into smaller and smaller pieces.

Jean-Francois Ghiglione, a researcher at the Laboratory of Microbial Oceanography in France said, "We did not imagine 10 years ago that there could be so many small microplastics, invisible to the naked eye, and that they were everywhere around us. And we could not yet envisage finding them in the human body".

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