Most mineral water bottles contain microplastics, according to a survey by an environmental association.
- Since 1950, 8.3 billion tonnes of plastics have been produced, half of them in the last fifteen years.
- Each week, we ingest an average of 5 grams of plastic, the equivalent of a credit card, according to the association.
Polypropylene, polyethylene, PET… In other words, plastic, present in the water of seven out of nine bottles.
This is the worrying observation drawn up by the association Act for the environment which publishes this Thursday the analysis results of several bottles of water, of several different brands, by a specialized laboratory.
The worst is for children
Microplastics are particles smaller than 5 millimeters. We find quantities that are often small but very variable. The water bottle that contains the most is intended for children: La Vittel kids, with 121 microparticles.
The plastic can come from the cap as much as from the bottle. “Plastic degrades inexorably and it starts degrading even before we start consuming the water.“, explains Nathalie Gontard, packaging specialist at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (Inrae) for France Info.
As early as 2019, the World Health Organization officially recognized the contamination of water with microplastics. And using a plastic container to store water actually increases the risk of ingesting more…
“We are thinking of buying pure water”
“For us, it’s a scandal. We think we are buying pure water, but it contains plastic“, castigates Magalie Ringoot, the campaign coordinator of the association.
Act for the environment Calls on public authorities to ban plastic bottles and on manufacturers to replace them with glass bottles or by selling them in bulk.
“Plastic has the sad specificity of not disappearing but of fragmenting into microparticles and nanoparticles and of persisting for hundreds of years. Under the action of time, heat, light or abrasion, pollution becomes imperceptible but remains very real, contaminating biodiversity, the water cycle, soils, the food chain and ultimately our organisms”, can we read on the association’s website.
