It might sound exaggerated, but no—it’s literal: we are eating plastic. Not because it’s served for lunch, or because we order it with our coffee, but because it’s there—hidden in water, in salt, in fish, in the air. And the most unsettling thing is that we can’t even see it—these are particles so small they go unnoticed.
Plastic was one of the most important discoveries of the last century. A lightweight, versatile, and durable invention that revolutionized medicine, industry, and transportation. Yet that same durability has become its greatest contradiction: it 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. And if we drink only 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 INTE B60:2025 technical standard for construction, 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 types of metrics, with some even questioning the need for the standard.
Arguments about recycling, carbon footprint, and already-optimized supply chains—undeniably valuable, of course—have made it clear that there’s a blind spot in the conversation: we are not fully assessing the potential risks microplastics pose to our health. Their footprint isn’t measured only in CO₂: it also leaves a biological footprint that lingers in our bodies.
Plastic is made from oil, but we rarely make the connection. How strange, right? This shows that we need a collective understanding of the material’s nature—and that we must rethink the relationship we have built with 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.