Roast dinner and all the microplastic trimmings please

230,000!

That’s the amount of microplastic particles scientists discovered on a regular Sunday roast dinner recently. That’s the equivalent of eating two large plastic shopping bags every year, in a single roast dinner meal!

If you find these figures are shocking then you’re not alone as the scientists behind the study from the University of Portsmouth discovered that a major route for the plastic particles to become part of your meal is transference. If the meal is wrapped in plastic or is transported in plastic packaging the microplastics simply rub off and transfer themselves. A roast meal made from meat and veg wrapped in plastic contains seven times more microplastics than a meal that isn’t.

It isn’t just through contact that our meals are increasingly becoming home to microplastics, vegetables ground in the soil bring up plastics that have been absorbed and even the air we breathe has microplastics floating in it which can easily fall onto our food as we prepare it for consumption.

The scientists are concerned about the levels of contamination as it is currently unclear how much long-term harm microplastics do to our health with some researchers even asking whether microplastics can pass through the barrier between our blood and our brains.