Editorial: Nanoplastics are dangerous — and they are in your ‘pure’ bottled water

Is anyone really surprised to learn that bottled drinking water is loaded with tiny bits of plastic? The bottles are, after all, plastic. So are the caps. It stands to reason that microscopic bits of the stuff get into the water inside during bottling or packaging, or while sitting in storage. A 2018 study found as much.

The shocking, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the revelation that bottled water is laden with even tinier nanoplastic bits and associated chemicals. Nanoplastics are potentially more dangerous than microplastic particles because they are so small they can be absorbed into human cells.