{"id":2012,"date":"2020-03-15T08:09:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-15T08:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/?p=2012"},"modified":"2020-05-31T12:53:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-31T12:53:38","slug":"scientist-finds-microplastics-in-milk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/en\/health-nutrition\/scientist-finds-microplastics-in-milk\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientist finds microplastics in milk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Microplastics in Milk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JLeOjd9VGnM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Numerous international research studies have demonstrated that microplastics have found their way into almost every ecosystem on Earth as well as products for human consumption, such as fish, salt, and beer. Microplastics form primarily when plastic waste is washed into the oceans and rivers and begins to break down due to exposure to wave energy, UV-radiation, salt, wind, and other external effects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microplastics have become so ubiquitous that they might even permeate the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0269749117307686\">air we breathe<\/a>. Scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about potential long-term health implications. Despite the fact that studies have not yet established any direct link between microplastic consumption and adverse health effects in humans, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1382668918303934\">damaging impacts<\/a> of microplastics on marine organisms have begun to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"673\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-1024x673.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2025\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-1024x673.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-300x197.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-768x505.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-1536x1009.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/21282786668_79dbd26f13_o-2048x1346.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/oregonstateuniversity\/\"><br><\/a><em>M<\/em><em>icroplastics have found their way into almost every ecosystem on Earth as well as products for human consumption, such as fish, salt, and beer. Photo by Oregon State Universit on Flickr<\/em><br><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Plastic\nin milk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Noam van\nder Hal, a PhD in Environmental Sciences at the University of Haifa and current\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mimshak.org.il\/en\/\">Mimshak fellow<\/a> at the Ministry of the Interior, has examined\ndifferent types of cow milk for microplastic particles. Van der Hal took sixteen\nsamples from three different brands of milk that were sold in three individual types\nof packages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe\nprocess was pretty straightforward. I took various samples of milk from a plastic\nbottle, a plastic bag, and a cardboard container and percolated them through\ndifferent-sized filters. Through this, I was able to determine the most\naccurate number of particles per sample,\u201d van der Hal explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just as van\nder Hal anticipated, all three brands of milk contained microplastics, ranging from\n10 to 200 particles per sample. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In\naddition, van der Hal visited a dairy farm and took three samples from one of\nthe large tanks where the milk is stored before it is picked up by trucks and\ndistributed to buyers. \u201cIn order of magnitude, I found fewer particles of\nmicroplastics in those samples. That means for every 10 particles of plastic in\nthe packaged milk, I found only one particle per sample from the tank,\u201d van der\nHal says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In short,\nthe milk that came from the farm contained fewer microplastics than the actual\npackaged and ready-to-sell product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on these\nfindings, van der Hal speculates that the bottling process is the main source\nof microplastic contamination with respect to the milk samples. \u201cSome of the\nparticles are merely fibers while others are actual pieces of plastics, but my\nguess is that most of the particles leach into the milk during the bottling\nprocess.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although it\nis only an educated guess, van der Hal concludes that either loose plastic\nparticles were already inside of the containers prior to the bottling, or they broke\naway from the inside of the packaging while the milk was bottled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAdmittedly, this was an off-the-record experiment and not part of an elaborate research study. Therefore, my findings cannot be regarded as official results. However, what I did can easily be reproduced in a proper research scenario, and I assure you the results will be pretty much the same,\u201d he stresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2021\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/mihail-macri-gq-IUqXTvB4-unsplash-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption><em>All three tested brands of milk contained microplastics, ranging from 10 to 200 particles per sample. Photo by&nbsp;Mihail Macri&nbsp;on&nbsp;Unsplash<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>\u201cWherever\nwe look, we find microplastics\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was\nnot the first time van der Hal examined consumer products for microplastic\npollution. Last year, he was involved in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/en\/uncategorized\/israeli-scientists-find-large-amounts-of-microplastics-in-table-salt\/\">research study<\/a> conducted at Tel Aviv University,\nwhich found significant quantities of microplastics in sea salt. The study concluded\nthat every Israeli consumes roughly 2,000 pieces of microplastic each year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/S0025326X16310566\">2017<\/a>, van der Hal and two of his colleagues found\nthat considerable amounts of microplastics are floating in the Israeli\nMediterranean waters impacting marine life, especially fish. A number of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/en\/uncategorized\/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-microplastics-off-israels-mediterranean-coast\/\">rabbitfish<\/a>, which were surveyed during the\nstudy, were found to have substantial amounts of microplastic particles in\ntheir digestive tracts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOnce again,\nthe findings of this experiment have not been published and are not officially\nvalid. However, there is a big chance someone else is working on the same\nsubject right now, and it\u2019s only a matter of time until a public research study\nwill get the same results,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe goal of this experiment was\nsimply to strengthen the current state of research that wherever we look, we\nfind microplastics. The question is, what are we going to about it? Do we want\nto keep contaminating our environment and potentially our bodies with\nmicroplastics?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Or do we start doing something about it?\u201d van der Hal concludes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This ZAVIT article was also published in&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/ynetnews.com\/business\/article\/H1tqdGHNI\">Ynetnews<\/a>&nbsp;on 02\/29\/2020.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Numerous international research studies have demonstrated that microplastics have found their way into almost every ecosystem on Earth as well &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":2013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"acf":[],"post-meta-fields":{"_edit_lock":["1590929619:11"],"_oembed_74ab1fdcbc8872d62db2e7e2751a6552":["<iframe title=\"Microplastics in Milk\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JLeOjd9VGnM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>"],"_oembed_time_74ab1fdcbc8872d62db2e7e2751a6552":["1590929623"],"_thumbnail_id":["2013"],"_edit_last":["11"],"subtitle":["A simple experiment conducted by an Israeli scientist has revealed, once again, that microplastics are everywhere. Not only in the environment but also in many every-day consumer products"],"_subtitle":["field_59d3d36ea7fe1"],"_wpml_media_duplicate":["1"],"_wpml_media_featured":["1"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2012"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2642,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2012\/revisions\/2642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zavit.org.il\/intl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}