Good Lifestyle

Summer is the perfect time forSeafood. There are few accompaniments as refreshing than cold rosé and flood oysters and the duo constitutes the perfect indulgence of a good hour. However, a new study details a discouraged discovery of your favorite shellfish and crustaceans.They all contained plastic traces.

The study, which was published in the newspaperEnvironmental Science and Technology, was conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Exeter and the Queensland University.The researchers examined Oysters, shrimp, squid, crabs and sardines of a market in Australia and found that each sample had been contaminated with plastic.

The main author Francisca Ribeiro of UQQueensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences Clarified that the study was a stepping stone to better understand the potential side effects of microplastic ingested in various seafood.

"We found polyvinyl chloride - a widely used synthetic plastic polymer - in all samples we tested, but the most common plastic used today - polyethylene - was the highest concentrate we found"Ribeiro said.

The microplastics, as its name suggest, are very small pieces of plastic that souillouise the ocean. As a result, marine life and other organizations inevitably end up eating them. Since the seafood tested above, Ribeiro says that far sardines had the highest concentration of plastic at 2.9 milligrams per gram of fabric. Plastic levels in squid, shrimp and oysters were much lower at 0.04, O.07 and 0.1 milligrams, respectively.

The results made it possible to quantify about the amount of plastic a seafood eater consume. For example, an average portion of oysters or a squid could expose a person to about 0.7 milligram (mg) of plastic.When you consume a portion of sardines, a person could ingest up to 30 milligrams.

"For comparison, 30 mg is the average weight of a rice grain. Our results show that the amount of plastics present varies considerably in species and differs between individuals of the same species," said Ribeiro.

The study also allowed researchers to define what microlastic levels are potentially harmful to human health using a plastic quantification technique that allowed to report results in mass units.

Seafood is not the only thing you eat that is polluted by microplastics. In reality,bottled water contains sea salt,Beerand honey are all known to contain traces of the substance. For the context,A study published in the same newspaper Last year found that humans consume anywhere from39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles each year. More research must be performed before knowing what dose of microplastics detrimental to human health, but if something, this new study details the amount of synthetic material found in some of your favorite seafood aperitifs.