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Small pieces of plastic smaller than 5mm is broken away from plastic products can enter waterways and into water bodies. During washing, synthetic clothing produces lint that are small pieces of plastic sewed together. These small pieces of plastic is often blocked by filtration systems and enter water bodies.

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This story is part of Planet or Plastic?-our multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis. Learn what you can do to reduce your own single-use plastics, and take your pledge.

This story appears in the May 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Not long ago I went snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean, a half mile off the southwest coast of Oahu. The flanks of the Hawaiian island are steep there, and the bottom quickly disappeared beneath us as we motored out to the site. Looking back, I could see the green slopes of the Waianae Range rising to 4,000 feet behind the beach. Normally the mountains shield the water here from the trade winds. But on that day a breeze created a light chop that nearly obscured what I had come to see: a thin, oily slick of surface water, rich in organic particles, in which newborn fish were feeding and struggling to survive their first precarious weeks.

Plunging my face into the sheen, I found myself looking inside a fish nursery: The water was dotted with life you would ordinarily never notice. Fish eggs drifted like tiny lanterns, their yolk sacs glowing in the sunlight. Fish larvae small as ladybugs darted about. A sergeant major damselfish the size of a dime appeared huge by comparison as it fluttered past. Below us, a school of 12-inch, bigeye scad-like mackerel but with enormous eyes-fed on everything that had the misfortune of being small.

My guides that day, oceanographer Jamison Gove and fish biologist Jonathan Whitney of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu, are nearly three years into a research project that aims to make sense of this chaotic scene. The larval stage is the "black box" of fisheries science: Fertilized eggs go in, and young fish come out-but what happens inside remains sketchy. The larval fish are so small and fragile they're exceedingly difficult to study. The overwhelming majority will never become adults. Yet fish populations around the world, and the animals that eat them, depend on just how many larval fish make it, and in what condition.

What Gove and Whitney have found lately-and what David Liittschwager 's photographs of their water samples document-is that fish and wholesome fish food are not the only things collecting in the slicks off Hawaii. Microplastics, tiny shreds of human trash, are there as well, and in such abundance that larval fish are eating them in their first days of life.

For newborn fish, to eat is to live another day; if their first meal is plastic, they're not consuming the calories they need to sustain them until the second. "They've beaten a lot of odds to get this far," Gove says. "They hatched, they found the slick, they're feeding and growing. This is one-tenth of one percent that made it this far; they're the lucky ones. And now plastics are coming in."

"The most critical moment is that first feeding," Whitney says. "If they get a piece of plastic, that could be it. A single thread in the stomach of a larval fish is potentially a killer."

Plastic waste, mostly from rivers or careless dumping on land, washes into the oceans at an average rate of about nine million tons a year, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia. The visible trash, along with heartbreaking images of its impact on everything from turtles to birds to whales, has generated a public outcry. But sunlight, wind, and waves eventually break down ocean plastic to bits that are barely visible. One of the biggest unknowns-and concerns-is the effect that these microplastics, smaller than a fifth of an inch, might be having on fish.

Fish provide critical protein to nearly three billion people and countless seabirds and other marine animals. But fish stocks worldwide have fallen by half since 1970, surveys show. Populations of the largest predatory fish, such as tuna, have fallen even more. The decline is largely because of overfishing, but pollution and waters warmed and acidified by climate change are having a growing impact.

As long ago as the early 1970s, scientists were finding plastic pellets-the material used to manufacture plastic goods-in the stomachs of fish caught off New England and Great Britain. More recent studies have documented the presence of even smaller microplastic particles in a growing array of adult fish. Larval fish have been studied much less but are likely to be more vulnerable to microplastics, as they are to everything else. "Any stressor will likely have more of an impact on early life stages than later life stages," says Susanne Brander, a toxicologist at Oregon State University who is studying how plastics might affect the growth of fish.

Most ocean fish are terrible parents. A few species guard their eggs on the seafloor; others protect them inside their mouths. But most fish release thousands or even millions of eggs and sperm into the wide ocean and never see their offspring. When eggs hatch a day or two later, they're on their own.

Newly hatched fish look misshapen, heads oversize, tails barely formed. They have to eat like crazy to grow into their body. Whereas human babies develop in the shelter of the uterus, fish mainly develop after they emerge into an unforgiving world.

"They hatch super early," Whitney says. "They have small brains; some fins aren't even formed. Their liver isn't fully developed. Or their hearing or seeing. They are only partially developed, but they are actively swimming, eating, fending for themselves."

Predators or starvation will get most of them. "That's why fish spawn so many eggs," says Su Sponaugle, an Oregon State University marine ecologist who specializes in the early life stages of fish. "They have to hedge their bets."

The larval phase is treacherous every step of the way-starting with the need for the larvae to find food, which they do in a surface slick. Surface slicks form mostly in coastal regions around the world, wherever currents, tides, or subsurface waves cause water to converge and concentrate the organic gunk that floats in it. Slicks can be seen by satellite as long, squiggly ribbons that run parallel to coasts.

Some larval fish swim to slicks, some drift, as do eggs not yet hatched. Predators converge on slicks too. If a baby fish manages to avoid being eaten and to find enough food, it will be about two inches long when it heads back to its permanent habitat-a reef, say. The right current will transport it there, the wrong one out to sea.

"If you miss an island, good luck with that. If there's no reef, you cannot complete your life cycle," Sponaugle says. Life for larval fish was a crapshoot even before they met our plastic trash.

Off Hawaii, a single eight-minute tow of the NOAA team's net yields a plethora of living organisms and plastic.

Pushed into a surface slick by converging currents, they're separated in the lab by a technician with tweezers. A computer program counts the plastic pieces and measures each one; the technician uses a microscope to identify the creatures.

Whitney and Gove came to ocean science and Hawaii by happenstance. Whitney, 37, grew up in New Jersey with a kid's plan to become a veterinarian. He arrived in Honolulu in 2006 as a volunteer for a census of humpback whales. In graduate school he worked his way down to the tiniest organisms of the sea.

Gove, 40, grew up in San Diego and learned to surf before he could read. A summer job with NOAA convinced him the ocean was more than a playground. After helping to cut 70 tons of abandoned fishing gear from Hawaiian coral reefs, Gove enrolled in graduate school to become an oceanographer. He specialized in how winds, tides, and waves affect ocean ecosystems and surface slicks in particular.

Slicks are transient-they break up in rough weather-which makes studying them a challenge. Gove and Whitney took me to see a slick off Oahu because it was close to their lab, but their main research site is on the west side of Hawaii, the Big Island, where two large volcanoes provide an even better wind shadow than Oahu's Waianae Range. The steep drop-off of the seafloor has proved to be a surprise bonus: The slicks attract an oceanic convention of not only reef fish but also fish from greater depths, including commercially important mahi-mahi, swordfish, and marlin.

"One of the coolest things we found was the diversity," Whitney says. "We've got deep-sea fish, mid-ocean fish, and reef fish, all interacting at the surface for the first few weeks of their lives. It was incredibly unique. I can't think of any other place on Earth where babies from different areas share nursery grounds."

He and Gove expected to find plastics in their slicks; the Hawaiian chain is in the drift pattern of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But they never intended to join the growing hunt for microplastics that has overtaken the work of so many marine scientists. Their focus was basic research on larval fish. Their samples contained such loads of plastic, however, that they had to revise their project.

The preliminary results indicate that slicks concentrate plastics even more than they do larval fish. In the water outside slicks, Whitney and Gove found nearly three times more larval fish than microplastics. Inside slicks, the situation was reversed: Microplastics outnumbered larval fish by more than seven to one. On average there was almost 130 times as much plastic inside slicks as outside.

"We didn't have any idea we would find such concentrations," Gove says. One of the first fish they dissected had plastic in its gut.

What harm such plastic is causing is still unsettled science. But in lab tests, some clues have emerged. Plastic reduces the appetites and growth rates of fish that consume it. That could affect reproduction and ultimately population size. "The larger a female fish is, the more eggs she can carry and the higher number of offspring she can produce," Brander says.

In their lab, Whitney and Gove oversaw the dissection of more than 650 larval fish, most of them between one-third of an inch to half an inch in length. They found plastic in 8.6 percent of the ones caught in slicks. That doesn't sound like much, and outside slicks the percentage was less than half that-but scientists know that small changes in the survival of larval fish can translate into large changes in fish populations, with cascading effects up the food chain.

The NOAA researchers found tiny blue strands of polyethylene and polypropylene, commonly used to make fishing gear, in the stomachs of larval swordfish, marlins, and five other species. The strands look a lot like the food that larval fish crave: tiny copepods, bluish crustaceans with long, skinny antennae.

In larval mahi-mahis, Whitney and Gove found no plastic. They're not sure why. Was it because eyesight develops earlier in mahi-​mahis, making them better than other species at distinguishing plastic from prey? Or was it because the mahi-mahis that ate plastic had died and escaped detection?

Flying fish appear to eat plastic especially frequently. Besides serving as prey for larger fish, including sharks, flying fish are primary prey for 95 percent of Hawaiian seabirds. Are birds ingesting plastic with their flying fish, and is that affecting them? For every question the researchers answer, Gove says, 10 new ones come up.

The smallest fish he and Whitney found with plastic in its stomach was just a quarter inch long, about six millimeters. But the plastic fibers the fish are eating are smaller.

"They are less than one millimeter, things you can barely see with the naked eye," Whitney says. That is "the shocking part: The pieces we can't even see are the problem."

In 2018 David Liittschwager photographed jellyfish for the October issue; staff writer Laura Parker wrote the June cover story on plastic trash.

The nonprofit National Geographic Society, working to conserve Earth's resources, helped fund this article.

The National Geographic Society and Sky Ocean Ventures have launched the Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge, which asks problem solvers around the globe to develop novel solutions to tackle the world's plastic waste crisis. Have an idea? Submit your solution by June 11 at oceanplastic-challenge.org.

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Microplastic is leading to big problems for fish in the ocean

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Newborn fish are mistaking tiny bits of trash for food. If they die, there'll be fewer big fish-and that could rattle the food chain.

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- microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, which are smaller than 5mm
-eg synthetic clothes, single-use plastics

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when we wash synthetic clothes, the water from our washing machines are disposed to the ocean, along with microplastics

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Microplastics in water bodies not only cause water pollution but sea creatures can mistake these plastic as food. And the plastic is passed up the food chain from prey to predator and eventually to humans.

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The sole of shoes and tyres are made of rubber, another type of polyester. Friction can cause the sole of shoes and tyres to wear and tear, causing bits of the soles and tyres being reduced into fine dust.

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synthetic clothes contain small pieces of plastic which will come out when we wash our clothes. the water containing the microplastics will be washed away and enter water bodies

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waste water carrying microplastics go through filters that are often too big to filter microplastics and plastics and will therefore enter the ocean.

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microplastics are small pieces of plastic smaller than 5mm

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we constantly use tyres and shoes in our day to day life, hence there is a lot of debris created from the friction between the ground and our shoes/tyres. also rain will wash the debris from the shoes and tyres to the nearest water body, harming the ecosystem inside them.

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- microplastics are objects smaller than 5mm
- eg clothes, plastics and dust

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tiny sea creatures in the sea would mistake microplastics for food and would eat the them. the tiny sea creature would then be eaten by a bigger predator and the microplastic would be passed up the food chain and would eventually reach humans.

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when the water containing microplastics is released into the sea, small animals living in the ocean will eat the plastic, and bigger fished will eat the smaller creatures. this cycle continues and eventually humans will consume the fish containing plastic.

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microplastics are microfibers which are tiny strands of plastic, less than 5 millimetres long

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Once released or broken away from their original plastic product, microplastics can travel through waterways and end up in the ecosystems that serve as homes to a range of marine life,thus entering the ocean and impacting marine life.

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microplastics are objects that are smaller than 5mm
synthetic fibres is an example of microplastic

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microplastics are plastic pieces that are smaller than 5mm. an example is clothes.

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when we wash our clothes , the water from our washing machine enters the ocean, along with the microplastics as the filters are too big to filter them out.

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Find ONE more video that is relevant to microplastic and you can learn from it.
Find TWO articles/news on microplastics that will make you want to find out more about it.

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https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-do-we-know-about-microplastics-in-food

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Globally, 322 million metric tons of plastics were produced in 2016, of which supplied the food and beverage industry for food packaging. These plastics contain an array of chemicals, including stabilizers, lubricants, fillers, and plasticizers.
Exposure to some environmental conditions, such as heat, causes plastic to break into smaller fragments called microplastics, which can migrate into food.
Single-use water bottles, to-go containers, food cans, and storage wraps are examples of common plastic-based food packaging that contains microplastics.

Heating food in plastic packaging, long storage times, and the type of plastic packaging a person uses all the amount of the microplastics and their harmful chemicals that migrates into food.

The microplastic chemicals present in food are a of those that manufacturers deliberately add, such as fillers and stabilizers, and those that accumulate as byproducts, such as residues and impurities.

Some common microplastics present in food include:

bisphenol A (BPA): Manufacturers this plasticizer to make polyvinyl chloride, the "parent" plastic of many products.

dioxin: This is a of herbicides and paper bleaching, which contaminate the environment.

phthalates: These make plastics more flexible, transparent, and durable and are present in many types of food packaging.

polyethylene and polypropylene: These make packaging lightweight and durable and are the most common plastics present in food and the environment.

Microplastics found in smaller quantities in food include BPA and BPF, mono-(3-carboxypropyl), mono-(carboxyisononyl), and mono-(carboxyisoctyl).

Microplastics are the fragments of stabilizers, lubricants, fillers, plasticizers, and other chemicals that manufacturers use to give plastics their desirable properties, such as transparency, flexibility, and durability.

However, experts have classified many of these chemicals as toxic and harmful to human health.

Below, we discuss some of the dangers of microplastics in greater detail.

Disrupting hormones

Scientists consider at least of the chemicals manufacturers use to make plastic packaging to be endocrine disruptors.
Endocrine disruptors are structurally similar to some hormones in the body - such as estrogen, testosterone, and insulin - and mimic and disrupt their natural functions, leading to adverse health effects and increasing a person's risk of chronic conditions.
In particular, research has shown that exposure to BPA plays a role in infertility in males and females alike, as well as in the development of polycystic ovary syndrome.

BPA competes with estrogen and testosterone for their receptors, reducing the amount of these hormones available for reproductive health.

Increasing risk of chronic disease

Research continues to demonstrate that long-term exposure to endocrine-disrupting microplastics increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Experts associate higher blood levels of dioxins, phthalates, and BPs with pre-disease states of inflammation, impaired fasting glucose, insulin resistance, and obesity, significantly elevating the likelihood of type 2 diabetes.
Some suggests that exposure to these microplastics in food causes as much harm to a person's health and raises their risk of chronic conditions to the same degree as following an unbalanced diet.

Impairing immune health

A 2020 review found that the increased inflammation induced by exposure to microplastics leads to poor gut health and, by extension, weakened immunity.

The gut plays an important role in immunity, with of the body's immune cells being in the gut. This means that any condition that affects gut health interferes with immune health as well.
Persistent exposure to microplastics in the gut is toxic to immune cells, causing dysbiosis - a disruption to the gut microbiota - and leading to an overgrowth of "bad" bacteria.
associates dysbiosis with the development of such conditions as Parkinson's disease.

Moreover, the surface of microplastics may harbor harmful bacteria that further compromise immune health.

Microplastics are in the environment, an outcome scientists attribute to the massive global production of plastics and widespread pollution.

Research suggests that an average person in the United States may consume over particles of microplastics from food alone per year.
This figure increases to an estimated 90,000 in those who regularly consume plastic-based bottled water, and to 120,000 when considering the inhalation of microplastics from non-food sources.
The authors of a identified an average of 20 microplastics per 10 grams of stool samples from eight participants.

These findings suggest that the amount of microplastics that people come into contact with and consume is much greater than experts once anticipated.

While eliminating your exposure to microplastics may not be possible, you can try to reduce the amount of microplastics you come into contact with and consume.

Here are some tips:

1. Limit highly processed foods

Research associates consumption of highly processed foods - such as hamburgers, ready-to-eat convenience meals, French fries, ice cream, soda, and canned foods - with higher levels of phthalate microplastics in the body. This effect is more pronounced in children.

Experts further speculate that the low nutritional quality of highly processed foods, combined with the harmful effects of the microplastics present in those foods, may be responsible for the development of chronic conditions, including heart disease.
The solution: Choose whole foods and minimally processed foods more often and limit or eliminate highly processed foods from your diet. This will help lower levels of endocrine-disrupting microplastics in the body.
2. Choose eco-friendly packaging

Using eco-friendly packaging the exposure to and migration of microplastics in the food supply.
The solution: Opt for the following:

glass storage containers, portable bowls, and water bottles

stainless steel bento boxes and reusable water containers

bamboo lunch boxes, bowls, utensils, and pantry storage jars

rice husk bowls and storage containers

3. Use glass or stainless steel water bottles

Exposure to microplastics is almost times higher in individuals who rely on their fluid intake from plastic water bottles than in those who use alternative water bottles.

This may be due to the fact that heat and longer storage times that may be common with bottled water the migration of microplastics from packaging into the food and water.
The solution: Replace single-use or BPA-containing water bottles with glass or stainless steel ones to reduce exposure to microplastics.
Microplastics are the fragments of stabilizers, lubricants, fillers, plasticizers, and other chemicals manufacturers use to give plastics their desirable properties, such as transparency, durability, and flexibility.

Microplastics migrate into the food supply and cause health issues, such as increased inflammation, impaired fasting glucose, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

Exposure to microplastics through food is high, but you can minimize it by limiting your consumption of highly processed foods, choosing eco-friendly food packaging, and replacing plastic water bottles with glass or stainless steel ones.

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Microplastics in food: Health risks and solutions

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Globally, 322 million metric tons of plastics were produced in 2016, of which supplied the food and beverage industry for food packaging. These plastics contain an array of chemicals, including stabilizers, lubricants, fillers, and plasticizers. Exposure to some environmental conditions, such as heat, causes plastic to break into smaller fragments called microplastics, which can migrate into food.

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microplastics are objects smaller than 5mm and can be found in clothes

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microplastics are pieces of plastic that are less than 5 mm long such as microfibers,found in synthetic clothes, shards and microbeads which are found in cosmetic products.

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https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/.premium-israeli-scientists-show-for-first-time-how-microplastics-may-hurt-health-1.10618996

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Plastic is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Microplastic - small to microscopic pieces of debris created by the breakdown of plastic - is legion. The question is, what do microplastics do to our health? And the short answer is, we don't know. No idea.

But a new study done at Tel Aviv University and published in the journal Chemosphere indicates that we should be worried. The presence of microplastics exacerbates the toxicity of organic pollution in the environment roughly tenfold, a phenomenon known as joint toxicity, the team's specific model found.

Other plastics and contaminants may have different figures, but the direction is clear.

How bad is the problem? Horrifying. Microplastic has been found from the top of Mount Everest to the depths of the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean. On the mountain, the snow was ridden with plastic particles from climbers' gear and in the sea, a single liter of water from the Mariana Trench contained thousands of sundry plastic particles. Microplastic has been found in glaciers at the North Pole.

Visible pieces of plastic have been killing animals in ways we shall not dwell on here. Just this week, ZME Science reported on a new study arguing that "the quantity of plastic on our planet has massively exceeded the safe limits for humans and wildlife," not just dismaying a shrimp or turtle but impacting planetary systems.

But what about pieces too small to see, in the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat (especially if we microwave our lunch in plastic containers)? Is it actually dangerous to us?

Yes, according to basic research conducted at Tel Aviv University by Dr. Ines Zucker of the School of Mechanical Engineering and the Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences with grad student Andrey Eitan Rubin.

For their case study, they modeled the interaction of microplastic in the sea - the concentration of which is growing constantly - with triclosan, an antibiotic and antifungal agent that, in 2016, the U.S. banned for use in hygienic products because of uncertainty about its effect on our bodies.

It had already been shown that microplastic adsorbs (attracts) organic molecules, like magnets attract iron. At sea, weathered microplastic turns out to be much more "attractive" to pollutants, Zucker explains.

"We showed that even very low concentrations of environmental pollutants, which are non-toxic to humans, once adsorbed to the microplastic result in significant increase in toxicity," she explains. The microplastics act like magnets for pollutants, concentrating them on the particle surface.

Every year 6.4 million tons of waste end up in the sea, of which between 60 and 80 percent are plastics. Credit: LUIS ACOSTA - AFP

And thus, when we eat microplastics, especially ones hailing from the sea (in a fish, in seaweed or any other way), the plastic ferries concentrated toxins into our bodies, she says.

Bad. Now for worse: Having found the enhanced adsorption of triclosan to microplastic in a marine environment, they took the combo and changed its environment to biological. "We skipped how it gets to the human gut," she observes, but for the sake of argument, say you ate a fish. What they found is that in the biological environment, the contaminant de-adsorbs. It falls off. Where does it do that? Somewhere in your body.

The result, they calculate, is tenfold toxicity compared with the toxin without the microplastic.

Plastic alone, contaminant alone - not much toxicity. Together - much toxicity. This is bad. QED.

The upshot is that if you eat microplastics and organic toxins - and you do - the toxins may get released in a concentrated form in certain areas.

Note that this is all theoretical at this point, Zucker stresses. We add that the number of parameters in the interaction between microplastics, toxins and biological systems is vast. But the indication is worrying.

"Even drinking desalinated seawater, which is common in Israel, can expose us to microplastic-enhanced toxicity," she suggests.

What can we do about all this? Nothing. Meanwhile, try to use less plastic, do less laundry. Think about the error of your environmental ways.

It bears adding that it isn't true that in contrast to diamonds, plastic is forever. It isn't, but it can take thousands of years to decompose and while it's doing that, it breaks down into the very microplastic fibers - from microscopic to a few millimeters in length - that are so worrying.

"The amount of waste dumped into the ocean every year is enormous - the best-known example is the plastic island in the Pacific Ocean, which has an area 80 times larger than the State of Israel," Rubin says.

This is definitely not somebody else's problem, he adds: "Our preliminary monitoring data show that Israel's shores are among the most polluted with microplastic waste. Each of the microplastic particles secreted in these areas has tremendous potential for harm as they serve as an effective and stable platform for any pollutant that they may encounter on their way to the human body."

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Israeli scientists show for first time how microplastics may hurt health

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Plastic is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. Microplastic - small to microscopic pieces of debris created by the breakdown of plastic - is legion. The question is, what do microplastics do to our health? And the short answer is, we don't know. No idea.

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micro-organisms consume these microplastics, mistaking them for food. The microplastics will pass down the food chain to humans, meaning we have harmful plastics in out bodies

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiEBEGKQp_I

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Microplastics are small pieces of plastic less than five millimeters long which can be harmful to our ocean and aquatic life.Some examples of microplastics are microbeads found in personal care products, plastic pellets (or nurdles) used in industrial manufacturing, and plastic fibres used in synthetic textiles (e.g., nylon).

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tyres and shoes are often used in the daily life. the soles of shoes and tyres are both made of rubber and friction would cause debris of these synthetic rubber to form.

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as tyres and shoes are often used, they will be break quickly. there is friction between the soles of the shoes and the floor as well as friction between the tyres and the floor. when the tyres and shoes break into small pieces, they can be easily washed away or blown away.

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A cluster of plastic pieces on a finger. When you eat, drink or even breath, you're almost certainly taking in tiny particles along with it. These ubiquitous fragments are known as microplastics. (iStock)

For anyone living in the United States in 2019, plastic is nearly impossible to avoid: It lines soup cans, leaches out of storage containers, hides in household dust, and is found inside of toys, electronics, shampoo, cosmetics and countless other products. It's used to make thousands of single-use items, from grocery bags to forks to candy wrappers.

But what many people don't know is that we're doing more than just using plastic. We're ingesting it, too. When you eat a bite of food or even have a sip of water, you're almost certainly taking in tiny plastic particles along with it. These ubiquitous fragments are known as microplastics.

Because research into microplastics is so new, there's not yet enough data to say exactly how they're affecting human health, says Jodi Flaws, a professor of comparative biosciences and associate director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Toxicology Program at the University of Illinois.

But "there cannot be no effect," says Pete Myers, founder and chief scientist of the nonprofit Environmental Health Sciences and an adjunct professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. It's likely that ingesting microplastics could further expose us to chemicals found in some plastics that are known to be harmful.

These chemicals have been linked to a variety of health problems, including reproductive harm and obesity, plus issues such as organ problems and developmental delays in children.

Here's what you need to know about the tiny bits of plastic in our food and water - and what you can do to try to avoid at least some of them.

Why is it in food and water?

Humans have produced more than 8 billion tons of plastic, mostly since the 1950s. Less than 10 percent of it has been recycled.

Over time, much of it has broken down into tiny particles that make their way into lakes, rivers and oceans, eventually contaminating our food and water. And much of our food comes wrapped in plastic, which leads to tiny particles breaking off into our meals.

There is so much plastic all around that we even breathe in tens of thousands of tiny plastic fragments or fibers every year.

How much do people ingest?

One research review published in June calculated that just by eating, drinking and breathing, Americans ingest at least 74,000 microplastic particles every year. Another recent study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund and conducted by researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia estimated that people consume about 5 grams of plastic a week - roughly the equivalent of a credit card. (That work is still under review.)

How does it affect health?

There is evidence, at least in animals, that microplastics can cross the hardy membrane protecting the brain from many foreign bodies that get into the bloodstream. And there's some evidence that mothers may be able to pass microplastics through the placenta to a developing fetus, according to research that has not yet been published but was presented at a spring conference at the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability.

Myers says some of these microplastic particles could potentially leach bisphenol A and phthalates. Bisphenols are known to interfere with hormones, and there are studies linking bisphenol exposure to reduced fertility in men and women, Flaws says, noting that phthalates are also known to disrupt hormones, and prenatal exposure to phthalates is linked to lower testosterone in male offspring.

Styrene, another chemical found in plastic and some food packaging, has also been linked to a number of health issues, including nervous system problems, hearing loss and cancer.

Flaws says microplastic particles can also accumulate polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), other chemicals that are linked to harmful health effects, including various cancers, a weakened immune system, reproductive problems and more.

Once these chemicals are inside of us, even low doses may have an effect.

In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a statement recommending that families reduce exposure to these chemicals.

"Plastic products were never designed to end up in our oceans," the Plastics Industry Association (PLASTICS) said in a statement to Consumer Reports. It added that research has not shown "significant human health impacts" from microplastics, but this is something PLASTICS and experts we spoke with agreed requires further study.

The American Chemistry Council, another industry group, said in a statement to Consumer Reports that plastics used for food packaging must meet strict Food and Drug Administration safety standards. "To help evaluate the safety of our food, FDA reviews safety information on food packaging materials, including whether tiny amounts of substances could potentially migrate from a package into its contents. Through rigorous analysis, the health experts at the FDA have determined these products to be safe for their intended use."

But not everyone agrees that there's sufficient oversight. Companies can designate substances that come into contact with food as "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) without providing peer-reviewed safety evidence to the FDA, a policy Consumer Reports has previously flagged as something that can put consumers at risk. The 2018 AAP report criticized the long list of chemicals that come into contact with food; that report and Myers say these chemicals should be more strictly regulated.

6 tips to curtail your risks

You can't totally avoid microplastics or the chemicals found in plastic. But these small steps can help you avoid at least unnecessary extra exposure:

Drink water from your tap. Drinking water is one of the biggest contributors to microplastic ingestion, but bottled water has about double the microplastic level of tap water, according to Sherri Mason, sustainability coordinator at Penn State Behrend and a chemist who has studied plastic in tap water, beer, sea salt, and bottled water.

Don't heat food in plastic. Heated plastics have been known to leach chemicals into food. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends not putting plastic into your dishwasher.

Avoid plastic food containers with known issues. The AAP report noted that recycling codes "3," "6," and "7" respectively indicate the presence of phthalates, styrene and bisphenols. It adds that if these products are labeled as "biobased" or "greenware," they do not contain bisphenols.

Eat more fresh food. Though the levels of microplastics in fresh produce have been largely untested, these products are less likely to expose you to unwanted chemicals, according to the AAP, especially when compared with anything wrapped in plastic.

Minimize household dust. Household dust can expose people to chemicals, including phthalates, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and flame retardants, Flaws says. Vacuuming regularly can help reduce household dust exposure, according to the Silent Spring Institute.

Think big picture. Individuals can take actions to limit their plastic exposure, Myers says, but large-scale solutions will require reducing the amount of plastic used overall. The experts we spoke with say that consumers should opt for products packaged in glass instead of plastic, use reusable nonplastic containers whenever possible and support policies limiting the use of single-use plastic.

Copyright 2019, Consumer Reports Inc.

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Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Read more at ConsumerReports.org.

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You're literally eating microplastics. How you can cut down exposure to them.

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For anyone living in the United States in 2019, plastic is nearly impossible to avoid: It lines soup cans, leaches out of storage containers, hides in household dust, and is found inside of toys, electronics, shampoo, cosmetics and countless other products. It's used to make thousands of single-use items, from grocery bags to forks to candy wrappers.

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Since microplastics can be found in cosmetic products, when we wash our faces, water will enter water bodies when disposed

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small pieces of microfiber falls out when washing our clothes and the water from our washing machines will be disposed, entering the ocean along with the microplastics

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Driving, especially accelerating and breaking, causes wear and tear of car tyres, which produces microplastics due to the friction between the ground and our tyres. When it rains, the microplastics are washed into nearby water bodies such as sewers and rivers.

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When water containing the microplastics enter the ocean, organisms can mistaken them as food, and eventually passing down to humans

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Microplastics are small pieces of plastic less than 5mm. Some examples of microplastics are microbeads found in personal care products

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when the sea animals consume these microplastics, mistaking them as food, not only will it cause harm to their health but it will also be passed down via a food chain when it gets eaten by its predators and eventually to humans

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the soles of shoes are made out of rubber and are used constantly in our daily lives hence friction will form causing the microplastics to come off and when it rains, it washes off to the water bodies

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There would be many persistent organic pollutions that float around the ocean at low concentrations,they can damage marine organisms as they can lead to digestive blockage internal damage from abrations.The dramatic increase in colonization opportunities can have a population-level consequence as microplastics provide abundant of space for small organisms to attach.

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Both the soles of shoes and tyres are made of rubber.Very fine rubber dust particles can depending on the classification be counted among microplastic (because rubber is just another polymer) or separately.