Microplastics are “one of the greatest man-made disasters of our time”, according to the Natural History Museum. That's bad news, given they are also everywhere: in tap water, the food you buy, the clothes you wear and the air you breathe.
The largest microplastics can be seen by the naked eye and are anything under half a centimetre in size. But many of them are small enough to act like spots of dust which we can unconsciously breathe in or eat in food. The smallest particles are called nanoplastics and they are small enough to get their way deep into the human body.
New findings from the University of Portsmouth show that there is so much synthetic（合 成的） material in our homes that we might be breathing in up to 7, 000 microplastic particles a day. Using special equipment, researchers measured a typical family home and found the highest concentration of it was in the bedroom of the eight-year-old daughter, whose room was decorated with plastic-based bedding, carpet and soft toys.
Although research is in its early stage, the risks of these plastics could be serious-some studies have linked high exposure to cancer risk and disrupting our hormones（荷尔蒙）. In animal studies，the particles have been shown to affect metabolism（新陈代谢），gut bacteria and the immune system, among other things.
It is not yet known what a healthy level of microplastics might look like, but Dr Sabine Donnai, CEO of the Viavi clinic, thinks that many people in the West are over the limit. In tests at her clinic, patients often come back with dangerously high levels of plastic in their bodies, she says.
