Do Glass Bottles Shed More Microplastics Than Plastic?
Learning Stats
سطح CEFR
Total Words
Unique Words
Difficulty
زیرنویسها (149 segments)
DownloadMicroplastics come from plastic.
Stay with me.
Microplastics come from plastic,
so why are there headlines going around about
finding them in beverages in glass bottles?
And specifically more microplastics in glass
bottles compared to plastic. Like, a lot more.
You would think that you could go for the glass-bottled soda
to avoid having more microplastics in your life,
but no, apparently the darn things are everywhere.
But while this is a real finding scientists have made,
there are plenty of caveats, and it’s too early to panic.
So let’s unpack this scary headline.
[♪INTRO]
Microplastics are, as the name suggests, tiny pieces of plastic.
The biggest ones are about five millimeters,
which is roughly the size of a standard lego stud.
The smallest ones are just one nanometer across.
That’s about a hundred thousand times
smaller than the width of a human hair.
Several studies have found microplastics inside human bodies.
They’re in our blood, our lungs, and even our brains,
although those studies can have their own flaws.
One of the most common ways that microplastics
get into our bodies is through our food and drink.
We don’t know too much about whether or how
these tiny particles can actually affect our health.
But it’s important to find out as much as we can about what
and how much people are consuming so
we can start to make those connections.
In 2025, a group of French scientists measured the
amount of microplastics in a bunch of different drinks, including
water, beer, wine, and soft drinks such as soda and lemonade.
This is the European version of lemonade, so it’s fizzy, by the way.
The scientists also studied how the packaging might
affect the amount of microplastics in a drink.
They tested beverages in glass bottles, plastic bottles,
cans, and a couple of types of big plastic jugs.
Overall, the amount of microplastics in each drink varied pretty widely.
But both the wine and the water they tested contained notably few
microplastic particles, regardless of the type of container they came in.
But even with the variability, one odd trend stood out.
With the exception of wine, most drinks contained more
microplastics when they were packaged in glass bottles
than when they were in plastic bottles. Weird, right?
The amount of extra plastic depended on the drink.
Water in glass bottles contained almost three
times more microplastics than water in plastic bottles.
But lemonade in glass bottles had more than
70 times more microplastics than it did in plastic bottles.
That’s… kind of bizarre.
After all, they’re microPLAStics, not microGLASStics.
So where were all these extra particles coming from?
We’ll answer that question after we
keep the lights on with this quick ad break.
Thanks to Manta Sleep for supporting this SciShow video!
Manta Sleep makes sleep masks and sleep accessories
so you have the energy to live your best life.
To get 15% off their products,
you can head to the link in the description.
Instead of fighting the afternoon slump when
you feel low on energy, focus, strength, and clarity,
you can lean in and refocus after a nice nap.
You can nap even when the sun’s out thanks
to their adjustable silk sleep mask or any one of
their selection of sleep masks and accessories.
For 15% off your Manta Sleep masks and
accessories and a free holiday recharge kit,
check out the link in the description and use the code SCISHOW.
To track down the source of the unexpected microplastics,
the researchers collected as many of the particles as they could
from the glass-bottled drinks. And they spotted some clues:
Most of the particles were the same color
and composition as the paint on the metal bottlecaps.
They also found scratches on the outsides of the caps themselves,
along with tiny pieces of paint on the insides of the caps.
The scientists thought the caps might scratch each other if they
were stored all jumbled together before going onto the bottles.
Taken together, this means that the caps are
the most likely culprit behind the mystery microplastics –
and yes, in this case paint counts as plastic.
This could also explain why the wine they
tested didn’t contain many microplastics.
Wine bottles usually have corks, not caps.
So there’s no paint to flake off.
The researchers also investigated ways to limit
the amount of microplastics the caps shed into drinks.
Blowing air onto the caps and rinsing them with water and
ethanol reduced the number of microplastic particles that found
their way into bottled water, but it didn’t eliminate them entirely.
Even though the study pointed to a probable source of microplastics,
it still has some limits. For one thing, the scientists only tested
a handful of brands for each type of drink.
And they only tested brands that were available in France.
The team tested six samples of each
combination of drink and container.
But each set of samples came from the same
batch of drinks prepared by the manufacturer.
This makes it tough to know for sure if the
results would be the same in a different batch.
Which, look. It’s easy to make fun of small sample sizes,
but somebody had to dump out a load of drinks by hand,
filter them, and run the results through an instrument
over and over again – it was a pretty labor-intensive thing!
They also only looked at larger microplastics —
ones bigger than twenty microns across.
That’s about a fifth as wide as a strand of human hair.
The instruments they used couldn’t pick out smaller particles.
So we don’t know if there’s a difference in how many of
these smaller particles end up in each drink or bottle type.
It’s also hard to compare different studies
on microplastics to one another.
There are some papers that back up this study.
A few have found that caps are a source of microplastics in drinks.
And some have found microplastic contents
pretty similar to the amounts in this paper.
But some other studies report wildly
different amounts of microplastics in drinks.
And there could be a whole bunch of different reasons for that.
It could be due to the scientific techniques the researchers were using,
the types and sizes of the microplastics they were looking for,
the kinds of drinks they studied, and even where the study took place.
So with all that in mind, what do we do about it?
The short answer is… we don’t know.
You don’t necessarily have to stop drinking out of glass bottles.
Microplastics were present in nearly all
the drinks they tested in this study.
So switching to plastic bottles or cans
won’t completely cut plastic out of your diet.
And again, different studies have found different
amounts of microplastics in each kind of drink.
If you wanted to be extra cautious,
you could avoid drinking from bottles with painted caps.
And if you’re a beverage manufacturer and you
happen to be watching this…
do those caps need paint, really?
But even then, we just don’t know if it actually matters.
We simply don’t know what amount
of microplastics it’s safe to consume.
The dose makes the poison, as they say, but we don’t have
enough information to know if or when microplastics turn toxic.
You probably intuitively don’t want to eat plastic,
and I’m with you on that one.
Research like this is starting to help build up
that body of data, but we don’t have it yet.
Without further studies, it’s tough to make any concrete
recommendations to help you make an informed decision.
So support your local toxicologist, and we’ll get there eventually.
[♪OUTRO]
Key Vocabulary (50)
toward
"Go to school."
belonging
"Cup of tea."
also
"You and me."
inside
"In the house."
specific
"That book."
A third-person singular pronoun used to refer to an object, animal, or situation that has already been mentioned or is clear from context. It is also frequently used as a dummy subject to talk about time, weather, or distance.
Used to show who is intended to have or use something, or to explain the purpose or reason for an action. It is also frequently used to indicate a specific duration of time.
A preposition used to indicate that something is in a position above and supported by a surface. It is also used to indicate a specific day or date, or to show that a device is functioning.
A preposition used to indicate that people or things are together, in the same place, or performing an action together. It can also describe the instrument used to perform an action or a characteristic that someone or something has.
A conjunction used to compare two things that are equal in some way. It is most commonly used in the pattern 'as + adjective/adverb + as' to show similarity.
Used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing. It is the second-person pronoun used for both singular and plural subjects and objects.
Used to identify a specific person, thing, or idea that is physically close to the speaker or has just been mentioned. It can also refer to the present time or a situation that is currently happening.
A coordinating conjunction used to connect two statements that contrast with each other. It is used to introduce an added statement that is different from what has already been mentioned.
Used to indicate the starting point, source, or origin of something. It can describe a physical location, a point in time, or the person who sent or gave an item.
A third-person plural pronoun used to refer to two or more people, animals, or things previously mentioned. It is also commonly used as a singular pronoun to refer to a person whose gender is unknown or to someone who identifies as non-binary.
Sign up to unlock full features
Track progress, save vocabulary, and practice exercises
Description
Check out Manta Sleep here https://tinyurl.com/yuyzxkx6 and make sure to use SCISHOW for 10% off your order! And then, take a nap! A surprising study in 2025 claimed that glass bottles deposit...
دستهبندیها
ویدیوهای مرتبط
SciShow
