Less plastic enters the ocean than thought, but it lasts for decades
A Nature Geoscience model finds 3.2 million tonnes of floating plastic in the ocean, fed by only about 0.5 million tonnes a year, mostly…
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Microplastics found in human blood for the first time
A Dutch pilot study detected plastic particles in the blood of 17 of 22 healthy adults, at an average of 1.6 micrograms per millilitre.
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The disputed ‘spoonful of plastic in your brain’ study
A Nature Medicine paper reported plastic in every brain tested, rising over time, but its method and headline figure are strongly contested.
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Plastic detected in almost every human brain sample, at much lower levels
A 2026 study found micro- and nanoplastics in all 35 healthy brain samples and in 99.4% of samples from people with brain tumours.
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Microplastic fibres found deep inside living human lungs
UK surgeons and scientists found microplastics in 11 of 13 lung tissue samples, including the deepest regions of the lung.
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People swallow and breathe in up to 121,000 microplastic particles a year
The first systematic estimate of human microplastic intake found tens of thousands of particles a year, far more for people who drink only bottled…
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The ‘credit card of plastic a week’ claim is wrong by about a million times
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)’s viral estimate that people ingest 5 grams of plastic a week was re-analysed and found to be roughly…
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Nine in ten seabirds have eaten plastic; 99% of species will by 2050
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) modelling of decades of seabird studies found plastic ingestion is global, pervasive and rising fast.
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A single piece of plastic gives a sea turtle a one-in-five chance of death
Post-mortem data from Queensland, Australia, show that eating just 14 pieces of plastic gives a turtle a 50% chance of dying.
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914 marine species are known to have swallowed or been tangled in plastic
The definitive species count for plastic ingestion and entanglement has more than tripled since 1997.