Jan 29, 2025 · Researchers estimate that 10 to 40 million metric tons of microplastics are released into the environment every year, and that number could double by 2040. | Getty Images

Jan 29, 2025 · Microplastics -- plastic fragments up to 5 millimeters long -- are inescapable. An estimated 10 to 40 million metric tons of these particles are released into the environment every year, and if current trends continue, that number could double by 2040.

2 days ago · Plastic is everywhere, and it is essential to modern life. Yet it comes with a hidden cost: microplastics, tiny pollutants that have become a growing concern for both the environment and human health.

The term microplastics is used to differentiate from larger, non-microscopic plastic waste. Two classifications of microplastics are currently recognized. Primary microplastics include any plastic fragments or particles that are already 5.0 mm in size or less before entering the environment.

Jun 27, 2024 · Microplastics have been detected in fruits and vegetables, plastic water bottles, the air, cosmetics, and household dust. Now, researchers are finding them in almost every part of the human body, including in breast milk, the placenta, testicles, hearts, livers, and kidneys.

Jan 22, 2025 · microplastics, small pieces of plastic, less than 5 mm (0.2 inch) in length, that occur in the environment as a consequence of plastic pollution. Microplastics are present in a variety of products, from cosmetics to synthetic clothing to plastic bags and bottles.

Feb 27, 2024 · For more than three decades, UC San Francisco Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences Tracey Woodruff, PhD, MPH, has researched how the toxic chemicals that surround us in modern life make us sick, like those in microplastics.

Dec 28, 2015 · Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long which can be harmful to our ocean and aquatic life.

Apr 19, 2024 · Plastics find their way into the human body in the form of tiny particles called microplastics (less than 5 mm in diameter) and nanoplastics (less than 1 μm in diameter).

Apr 28, 2023 · One of the most damaging and long-lived legacies of the plastic pollution crisis is microplastics, a growing threat to human and planetary health. These tiny plastic particles are …