Takeaway Coffee Cups Release Thousands of Microplastic Particles

"It's 7:45 a.m. You grab a takeaway coffee from your local cafe, wrap your hands around the warm cup, take a sip and head to the office. To most of us, that cup feels harmless - just a convenient tool for caffeine delivery. However, if that cup is made of plastic, or has a thin plastic lining, there is a high chance it's shedding thousands of tiny plastic fragments directly into your drink."

"In Australia alone, we use a staggering 1.45 billion single-use hot beverage cups every year, along with roughly 890 million plastic lids. Globally, that number swells to an estimated 500 billion cups annually. In new research I coauthored, published in Journal of Hazardous Materials: Plastics, we looked at how these cups behave when they get hot. The message is clear: heat is a primary driver of microplastic release, and the material of your cup matters more than you might think."

"Microplastics are fragments of plastic ranging from about 1 micrometre to 5 millimetres in size - roughly from a speck of dust to the size of a sesame seed. They can be created when larger plastic items break down, or they can be released directly from products during normal use. These particles end up in our environment, our food, and eventually, our bodies."

Meta-analysis of 30 peer-reviewed studies and laboratory experiments indicate that heating common hot beverage cups, especially those made of plastic or with thin plastic linings, causes release of microplastic fragments into drinks. Millions to billions of single-use cups and lids are used annually, creating widespread exposure potential. Microplastics range from about 1 micrometre to 5 millimetres and arise from breakdown of larger plastics or direct release during use. Measurement of microplastics in human tissue is difficult and contamination-prone, leaving human health impacts uncertain. Temperature and cup material are primary factors controlling microplastic release, indicating need for further research and mitigation.

Read at Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine