Saying that we are eating plastic sounds like an overstatement, but it’s literal. Although plastic isn’t served for lunch, or with our coffee, we can find it hidden in water, in salt, in fish, and in the air. The most unsettling thing is that we can’t even see it—plastic particles are so small they go unnoticed.
Plastic was one of the most important discoveries in the last century. A lightweight versatile invention that revolutionized medicine, industry, and transportation. Moreover, this innovative material became incredibly durable. However, this characteristic is paradoxical because plastic doesn’t disappear; it just gets smaller.
Recent studies estimate that a person can ingest up to 52,000 microplastic particles per year. When inhalation is factored in, that number can rise to 121,000 particles annually. Further, if we only drink bottled water, we should add around 90,000 more particles to that figure. Plastics such as the popular polyethylene, PET, and polystyrene have been detected in blood, lungs, and placentas.
Measuring the Impact
A few weeks ago, I attended a workshop on the elaboration of the INTE B60:2025 technical standard, which aims to measure the plastic footprint of products, companies, or sectors.
I was struck by how much resistance there still is to incorporating these metrics. Some people even questioned why the standard was created by arguing that they already take into consideration aspects such as recycling, carbon footprint, and optimized supply chains when managing their materials. Although that is undeniably valuable, clearly, there’s a blind spot in the conversation since plastics also involve a biological footprint that lingers in our bodies. Therefore, we are not fully assessing the potential risks microplastics pose to our health.
Plastic is made from oil, but we rarely make the connection. How strange, right? Our lack of awareness shows that we need a collective understanding of the nature of plastic—and that we must rethink our relationship to it over recent decades.
Let’s look more closely at the materials that surround us. Let’s ask ourselves whether something we use every day could have another life, another purpose, some sort of extension. Let’s question whether we have the capacity to ensure the proper disposal of every piece we acquire—and let’s acknowledge that plastic itself is not the enemy, but our close and dependent relationship with it just might be.