Disposable Coffee Cups Release Trillions Of Microplastic Particles In Your Drink

Disposable containers and cups are a curse to mankind, with their thin plastic lining making them almost impossible to decompose efficiently. And now, a new study has found that these have shed trillions of microscopic plastic particles into your drink.

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This is according to a research done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology that analysed single-use hot beverage cups coated with low-density polyethene. They found that when the cups were subjected to drinks at 100 degrees celsius, they managed to release trillions of nanoparticles per litre into the water.?

To get to this result, researchers took the water in the cup and sprayed it out into a fine mist, and left it to dry, thus isolating the nanoparticles from the rest of the solution.?

After the mist dried out, the nanoparticles in it were sorted by their size and charge. They could then specify a specific size and pass them into a particle counter. The nanoparticles were exposed to the hot vapour of butanol -- a kind of alcohol -- and cooled down rapidly.?

As the alcohol condensed, the particles swelled from the size of nanometres to micrometres, making them easily detectable.?

The process was automated and run by a computer programme. The researchers also had the option to identify the chemical composition of the nanoparticles by placing them on a surface and observing them with a technique dubbed scanning electron microscopy.

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After a bunch of analyses the researchers found that the average size of the nanoparticle was between 30 nanometres and 80 nanometres with a few above 200 nanometres.?

Researchers explain, “People have looked at snow in Antarctica, the bottom of glacial lakes, and found microplastics bigger than about 100 nanometers, meaning they were likely not small enough to enter a cell and cause physical problems. Our study is different because these nanoparticles are really small and a big deal because they could get inside of a cell, possibly disrupting its function.”

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