Isn't the majority of the inside of your refrigerator made of plastic? Ice cubes trays made of plastic? The bottles most supplements come in are plastic.
That's part of the problem. YOu can offset that by storage. Plastic is in your lungs, nutts, oceans etc.
Reducing plastic in the world and at home
Because plastics are in almost every part of modern life, it’s extremely difficult to eliminate exposures, Sathyanarayana acknowledges, but she has found ways to reduce her own.
She carries a stainless-steel water bottle and avoids plastic water bottles. She doesn’t microwave food in plastic containers and only uses glass, wood, or metal kitchen items, including mixing bowls, spoons, cutting boards, and food storage containers.
In her home, Sathyanarayana also takes her shoes off to avoid tracking in dust from the outside and uses a HEPA filter to capture particles from the air.
The Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF offers
additional tips to help minimize exposure to toxic chemicals, like those sometimes found in microplastics.
But Sathyanarayana admits there are some things that are tough to relinquish. For example, though most of her clothes are made of non-plastic cotton and wool, some of her clothes are made of plastic fibers, like the spandex, polyester, and nylon in her activewear.
“The reality is we can’t avoid plastics,” she says. “No one can.”
That’s why the bulk of the responsibility for reducing microplastics exposure is on governments and manufacturers, Woodruff says. For example, regulatory bodies could require washing machines to include filters that catch microplastics coming from clothing. Or even better, clothing manufacturers could use less plastic, she says.
But there’s still a lot of research and discussion that needs to happen to help policymakers understand the best way forward, Ross says.
“I don’t want to demonize plastics; they’re quite important,” Ross says, adding that they have been lifesaving in health care settings. “But do we really need our vegetables wrapped in plastic at the grocery store? Let’s have a conversation about what we really need plastic for.”
Always choose glass or stainless steel to store food.
prhe.ucsf.edu