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Particulate Plastics and Human Health
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This book chapter reviews the pathways through which particulate plastics expose humans to toxic chemicals — including plastic additives and adsorbed environmental pollutants — via diet, drinking water, and inhalation. It summarizes evidence that microplastics and their associated contaminants accumulate through food chains and reach human tissues.
Particulate plastics in the environment can leach toxic additives, or chemo-concentrate toxins already present in the environment, making them bioavailable again for direct or indirect human exposure. Particulate plastics have been measured in organisms at various trophic levels, leading to the accumulation of associated contaminants, eventual biomagnification. Routes of human exposure of particulate plastics include oral uptake through drinking water and diet containing particulate plastics, inhalation of micro and nanoplastics from the atmosphere, dermal uptake of nanoplastics and the associated chemicals derived from cosmetics. Particulate plastics impact human health at various stages of the life cycle of the plastics. These life cycle stages of particulate plastics include extraction of fossil fuel feedstocks to synthesize plastics, manufacture of plastic products, utilization of plastic products by consumers, management of plastic wastes. Extraction and transport of fossil fuel feedstocks, which include crude oil and natural gas used for plastic manufacture, lead to the release of toxic substances to the air, water, and soil.
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Microplastic Toxicity to Humans
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This review summarizes how microplastics enter the human body through eating, drinking, and breathing, and explores why they pose health risks through particle toxicity, the chemicals they carry, and the microbes they harbor. Because humans are at the top of the food chain, we accumulate microplastics from multiple sources, and the review warns that long-term accumulation in tissues may amplify their harmful effects.
Microplastic: Its Effect on Human Health
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This review outlines how microplastics from single-use packaging, bottles, and consumer goods enter the food chain through ingestion and inhalation, serving as carriers for toxic chemical additives and adsorbed pollutants that pose risks to human health.
Potential Human Health Impacts of Microplastics and Associated Chemicals
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This book chapter reviews human exposure pathways to microplastics — including ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact — and examines evidence linking tissue-level MP accumulation to inflammation, immune disruption, endocrine effects, and potential carcinogenicity.
Plastic and Human Health: A Micro Issue?
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This review evaluates the potential human health impacts of microplastic exposure through food and air, drawing on evidence from particle toxicology and related fields. Researchers note that if inhaled or ingested, microplastics could accumulate in tissues and cause localized inflammation, while chemical additives and adsorbed pollutants may leach out and cause additional toxic effects. The paper emphasizes that chronic, long-term exposure is likely the greater concern, though current data on actual human exposure levels remains limited.
Microplastics in the Human Food Chain: Exposure and Health Implications
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This review documents how microplastics have permeated the human food chain and are now detected in human tissues including lungs, liver, placenta, and breast milk, examining exposure routes through ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact and the potential health consequences of this ubiquitous contamination.
Research digests by email
When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.