People use millions of tons of plastic. Then this plastic goes to waste and is gradually destroyed in all sorts of landfills, in the sea or just under our feet.
We trample it, the sun scorches it, microbes gnaw, and gradually the plastic debris turns into microplastic.
Sometimes such plastic powder is not formed in nature, but even at the stage of industrial production. It is convenient for industrialists to use plastic in powder form. As if from flour, they knead dough from such a powder and bake something.
Formally, semi-eaten particles less than 5 millimeters in size are called microplastics. In fact, there will still be a bunch of completely microscopic powder. It is so small that it can penetrate into our bloodstream, travel through the body and be deposited somewhere.
Our body doesn't like this, and it can trigger inflammation in the places where microplastic particles are stuck. An unpleasant thing.
And now, after the discovery of microplastics in the poop, the scientists decided to go further and looked for microplastics in the placenta.
Well, that is, we agreed with healthy women that after giving birth they will take a piece of the placenta from them.
The whole thing took place under strict anti-plastic supervision. That is, no plastic was involved in childbirth, the medical staff had only cotton gloves, cotton underwear, glass and metal all around.
Pieces of the placenta were dissolved with chemicals and illuminated with clever Raman spectroscopy. This is when the light is shining on something, and the composition of this something changes the transmitted light so that it can be very well noticed. Well, like those gemstones that are the same color in themselves, but they already glow differently in the light.
And so they illuminated the resulting slurry with such spectroscopy and found microplastic particles there. Interestingly, in addition to plastic, there were still many grains of different pigments that surround us in life.
The devil only knows how this microplastic got into the placenta. Maybe the mother breathed it in, or maybe ate it, but these particles 5-10 micrometers in size floated in the blood and settled in the placenta.
This is exactly the size of a human red blood cell. That is, microplastics can be brought into any place to which blood reaches. And maybe even further, because our immune cells are able to drag these particles from place to place.
In short, you can expect that sooner or later such debris will trigger an immune response and provoke some kind of inflammation. Which will not be indifferent to the child. And plastic itself has a bad effect. for child development, oncology in the future and so on.
Previously, microplastics were found in penguins, but now it will spoil our children. Got trashed.
