Plastic Particles found in Human Bloodstream

One of our four Cosy Cottage commitments is to avoid plastics in our products and in our packaging.

None of our products contain plastic microgranules; our exfoliants are all either ground seeds (as in our hempseed and patchouli soap ) or fruit sugar crystals (in our mango butter foot balm).

Over the years, we have published several blogs describing the positive impact which our decision to avoid plastic packaging has on the environment, through savings in the number of tonnes of plastic in landfill and in our oceans. Despite the focus on plastic pollution, the amount of plastic produced every year continues to grow and is projected to do so into the foreseeable future.

Last week the results of a very small study, conducted in the Netherlands, were published. The study was tiny. Only 22 healthy, randomly selected adults; but the proportion of those tested whose blood samples were found to contain plastic particles was enormous, at almost 80%. The realisation that plastic particles are highly likely to already be coursing around your bloodstreams gives pause for thought, to say the least.

Questions are already being raised about whether plastic particles are reaching vital organs, even crossing the blood/brain barrier, and once there, what their long term effects might be.

Further research is urgently needed to expand the size of the population tested and develop an understanding of what impact the bloodstream borne plastic particles are having. In the meantime, at Cosy Cottage, we will be continuing to build on our existing positive contribution to plastic pollution and minimise the  use of plastic throughout our entire value chain.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022001258