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Opening plastic packaging produces microplastics
Summary
This news piece summarizes a study finding that simply opening plastic food packaging releases microplastic particles. Tearing and cutting actions on common packaging materials generate tiny plastic fragments, adding household packaging handling to the growing list of microplastic sources.
Tiny pieces of plastic known as microplastics are ubiquitous. These microplastics are additives in products such as cosmetics, or they can be formed from the degradation of larger pieces of plastic in the environment. A new study finds that the act of opening plastic packaging may be yet another source (Sci. Rep. 2020, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-61146-4). Cheng Fang of the University of Newcastle in Australia and coworkers tested whether microplastics are formed as a result of opening plastic packaging. The researchers used their hands, scissors, and knives to tear or cut plastic shopping bags, packaging film, plastic bottles, gloves, and packaging foam. They captured microplastic particles released during the process on a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), which they used to measure the change in mass caused by those particles’ formation. They used Raman and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to determine the particles’ chemical composition. All the plastic packages and all three