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Tier 2
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Original research — experimental, observational, or case-control study. Direct primary evidence.
Food & Water
Human Health Effects
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Microplastics and plastics-associated contaminants in food and beverages; Global trends, concentrations, and human exposure
Environmental Pollution2022
206 citations
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Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Score: 65
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0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
This review provides a global overview of microplastic contamination in food and beverages, including seafood, salt, honey, sugar, beer, milk, and drinking water. It estimates that humans may consume tens of thousands of microplastic particles per year through their diet, with concentrations varying widely by food type and region. The authors also examine plastics-associated chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol A that can leach from packaging into food, compounding the health risk.
Microplastics has become a global concern due to their ubiquitous presence which poses unavoidable human exposure risks. Geographical distribution and yearly trends of research on microplastics, food, and beverages do not exist. Thus, no overall account is available regarding the presence of microplastics and plastics-associated contaminants in food and beverages. Hence, this attempt is to review the geographical distribution of studies through a brief bibliometric analysis and the plastics-associated contaminants including plasticizers and microplastics in food and beverages. Estimated microplastic consumption has been listed for the pool of publications reviewed here. Further, this review discusses the ingestion potency of micropollutants associated with microplastics, possible health impacts, and existing challenges. Global trend in research exponentially increased after 2018 and China is leading. Studies on microplastics were limited to a few beverages and food; milk, beer, tea, refreshing drinks, salt, sugar, honey, etc., whereas seafood and drinking water have been extensively studied. Publications on plastic-additives were reported in two ways; migration of plastic-additives from packaging by leaching and the presence of plastic-additives in food and beverages. Bisphenol A and bis(2-Ethylhexyl) phthalate were the most frequently reported both in food and beverages. Exposure of packaging material to high temperatures predominantly involves plastic-additive contamination in food and beverages. Microplastics-bound micropollutants can also be ingested through food and beverages; however, a lack of knowledge exists. The complex matrix of food or beverages and the absence of standard procedures for analysis of microplastics and micropollutants exist as challenges. More investigations on the presence of microplastics and plastic-additives in food and beverage are urgent needs to a better assessment of potential human exposure and human health risk.