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Cutting Boards: An Overlooked Source of Microplastics in Human Food?
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Scientists found that plastic cutting boards release significant amounts of microplastics into food during everyday chopping. Polypropylene boards shed more particles than polyethylene, and chopping vegetables produced even more microplastics than chopping on empty boards. The researchers estimated that a person could be exposed to 7 to 50 grams of microplastic per year just from cutting board use, making kitchen tools a surprisingly large source of dietary plastic exposure.
Plastic cutting boards are a potentially significant source of microplastics in human food. Thus, we investigated the impact of chopping styles and board materials on microplastics released during chopping. As chopping progressed, the effects of chopping styles on microplastic release became evident. The mass and number of microplastics released from polypropylene chopping boards were greater than polyethylene by 5-60% and 14-71%, respectively. Chopping on polyethylene boards was associated with a greater release of microplastics with a vegetable (i.e., carrots) than chopping without carrots. Microplastics showed a broad, bottom-skewed normal distribution, dominated by <100 μm spherical-shaped microplastics. Based on our assumptions, we estimated a per-person annual exposure of 7.4-50.7 g of microplastics from a polyethylene chopping board and 49.5 g of microplastics from a polypropylene chopping board. We further estimated that a person could be exposed to 14.5 to 71.9 million polyethylene microplastics annually, compared to 79.4 million polypropylene microplastics from chopping boards. The preliminary toxicity study of the polyethylene microplastics did not show adverse effects on the viability of mouse fibroblast cells for 72 h. This study identifies plastic chopping boards as a substantial source of microplastics in human food, which requires careful attention.
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Plastic cutting boards in butcher shops and a supermarket chain in the Middle East were identified as a source of polyethylene microplastic contamination in raw cut meat, with mean particle sizes comparable to those found in environmental samples. The study provides direct evidence that food preparation surfaces introduce microplastics into meat products during retail processing.
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