Scientists discover microplastics everywhere after years of consumption and inhalation.

All around the earth, from the oceans to the mountains, humans have left tiny pieces of plastic behind. Utilizing fossil fuels, millions of tonnes of plastic are produced each year. Once in the environment, the plastic fragments strangle marine life and the food chain. Without even realising the repercussions, we ingested these microplastics. These days, plastic pollution hotspots are extremely prevalent. The massive ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ is one such example. People breathe in and consume up to 5 grammes of plastic every week on average, according to a startling analysis published in the same year by the environmental organisation WWF, according to AFP.

Scientists have recently learned that plastics are present in the human body, but it’s highly probable that people have been breathing in plastic for a long time. Only 10% of the 460 million tonnes of plastic that were consumed in 2019—double that of 20 years ago—were recycled.

The United Nations has begun the process of drafting a legally enforceable agreement to solve the global plastic disaster and issued a warning that pollution, biodiversity, and climate change are all crises that the world is currently experiencing.

In an interview with AFP, researcher Jean-Francois Ghiglione from the French Laboratory of Microbial Oceanography stated, ‘We did not think 10 years ago that there could be so many microscopic microplastics, undetectable to the naked eye, and that they were everywhere around us.’ Additionally, he mentioned that researchers have discovered microplastics in the placenta, kidneys, lungs, and even the Speen.

‘Small microplastics invisible to the naked eye have deleterious effects on all the animals that we have studied in the marine environment, or on land,’ said Ghiglione.

One theory holds that these microplastics are to blame for some syndromes and adverse effects on human health. Scientists are aware of the impacts of indoor and outdoor air pollution, which according to the Lancet Commission on Pollution specialists resulted in the deaths of over 6.7 million people in early 2019. While the health effects of plastic are unknown,