A one-liter bottle of water may contain as many as 370,000 bits of microparticle and nanoparticle plastics, a new study by Columbia University researchers found, demonstrating how pervasive manmade pollution is in the environment.
According to CNN, a 2018 study set the benchmark at around 300 bits of plastic per liter in bottled water. The new study, however, used technology able to detect bits of plastic so small they’re undetectable under an ordinary microscope. These plastic bits found in the tested water samples from were microparticle plastics ranging from 5 millimeters to 1 micrometer (roughly 1/25,000 of an inch) or smaller nanoplastics.
Plastics do not naturally leave the environment; instead, they erode down to smaller and smaller particulates that end up in the food system. Some of the plastic contamination in bottled water, however, may come from the bottling process itself because other studies have found tap water with fewer microplastics–and presumably fewer nanoplastics–in it, researchers say.