You Are Eating Plastic Every Day: What's in Our Food?

By Danielle Smith-Llera

Scientists have recently started studying plastic pollution and our food supply. And, make no mistake, you are eating microscopic pieces of plastic everyday. What does it mean for our health? And what can you do about it? Students will get practical tips on how they can get involved and become part of the solution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780756564629

Danielle Smith-Llera

Danielle Smith-Llera grew up in coastal Virginia, hearing unforgettable tales about her Mexican and Irish ancestors. She first moved overseas to teach in international schools in Hungary and Brazil. Life in the U.S. Foreign Service has taken her around the world to live in India, Jamaica, Romania, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Washington, DC. She loves sharing stories—fiction, nonfiction, and a mixture of both—in classrooms, museum exhibits, and, of course, books.

Book preview

Chapter One

PLASTIC ON THE MOVE

Wild seabirds on Midway Island walk up to visitors, close enough to chew their shoelaces. Out here in the middle of the north Pacific Ocean, these gray and white albatrosses have no predators to fear. So they are not afraid of people, though maybe they should be. Humans are responsible for great suffering on their island. Scientists, photographers, and film crews have traveled thousands of miles to take a closer look at the disturbing evidence.

A small pile of bones and feathers marks each place an albatross has died. The body decays, but it leaves behind a startlingly colorful collection. Bottle tops, toothbrushes, pens, small toys, cigarette lighters, and other plastic trash are found where a bird’s stomach once was. How did this happen? Seabirds swoop to the ocean surface to scoop up small fish into their beaks—and floating plastic trash too. Seabirds mistake it for food and feed it to their chicks at home. Plastic is not digestible. It crowds their stomachs, so the birds starve. Scientists have found plastic inside nearly every dead chick on Pacific islands like Midway. More than 90 percent of seabirds have eaten plastic, scientists believe.

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This seabird, found on Midway Island, died from ingesting plastic garbage.

Seabirds are not the only animals that are eating these unnatural meals. To a sea turtle, a floating plastic bag looks like a tasty jellyfish. Inside their stomachs, bags trap gas and make the animals too buoyant to dive for food or escape predators. To a sperm whale, rippling plastic looks just like a meal of squid. Scientists discovered that one young whale found in Thailand had died after it ate 80 plastic bags.

To people, floating plastic trash looks ugly and depressing, not tasty. But that does not keep us safe. The same ocean that carries plastic to marine creatures is serving plastic trash back to us in our food and beverages.

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Fact

Researchers off Canada’s west coast in 2013 found glitter, fake snow, and bean bag filler in seawater samples. These human-made materials were part of the roughly 9,200 microplastics they found per cubic meter. This amount is like emptying one salt shaker full of microplastics into about three full bathtubs.

If plastic can’t move itself, how does it go anywhere at all?

Plastic’s journey is full of surprises. Its path depends on small decisions people make, often without thinking. What happens to a plastic bottle once the water is guzzled? What about the plastic spoon once the ice cream is gone? Or the plastic straw once the milkshake is slurped up? Or plastic bags once the groceries are stashed in the refrigerator? Trash bins are often nearby. Finding a recycling bin might require a hunt. Each bin will take plastic on a very different trip.

Let’s follow the recycling path first. Into a recycling bin goes the plastic. A truck hauls it away to a sorting facility. Sensors use X-rays or infrared light to separate plastics made of different chemicals. Sorted plastics are then hauled to a recycling facility. They are washed, ground into flakes, melted together, squeezed out like toothpaste, and snipped into pieces. These pellets are shipped to manufacturing plants where they can take familiar shapes again.