A single bottle of water can contain dozens — or even thousands — of tiny plastic particles, according to a news story that’s prompted the World Health Organization to launch its own review.
Tests on more than 250 bottles showed almost all had contamination from microplastic particles that included polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET), according to a story in Orb, a nonprofit journalism organization.
In all, scientists working with the publication found plastic in 93 percent of the samples.
A microplastic is generally defined as particles less than the size of a sesame seed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Orb tested 11 popular name brands, including Nestle Pure Life, Aquafina, Evian and Dasani.
Plastics — which can come from a range of items — are the most prevalent type of debris found in the oceans and Great Lakes in the U.S., NOAA said.
Orb conducted the tests with the State University of New York for plastic particles in the .10 millimeter size range — or particles about the size of a hair.
The tests, using an infrared microscope, showed a global average of 10.4 plastic particles per liter.
Nestle Pure Life had the highest maximum number of particles per liter at more than 10,000.
The company said its tests showed between zero and five plastic particles per liter.

In its new report "Take Back the Tap," Food and Water Watch researchers look at the booming business of bottled water, which surpassed soda in sales in 2016.
The group finds nearly 64 percent of bottled water comes from municipal taps and that it cost almost 2,000 times as much as tap water and four times as much as gasoline.
"It is much more the norm in other countries where you have to go buy bottled water because the safety systems aren’t there for tap water," she says.
"That’s not the case in most American cities.
Bottled-water companies contend their water is safer.
But she adds it can be difficult to get support for this idea.
"It’s hard to build that political will if people think that you buy water at the grocery store and you just have to go take care of it that way," she explains.
"We kind of undermine this sense of ownership and accountability for having a tap-water system that works for everybody."
The bottled-water industry has spent millions lobbying the U.S. Congress and federal regulators.
From 2014 to 2016, the industry spent nearly $29 million on in-house and hired lobbyists.

The world’s leading brands of bottled water are contaminated with tiny plastic particles that are likely seeping in during the packaging process, according to a major study across nine countries published Wednesday.
"Widespread contamination" with plastic was found in the study, led by microplastic researcher Sherri Mason of the State University of New York at Fredonia, according to a summary released by Orb Media, a US-based non-profit media collective.
Researchers tested 250 bottles of water in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Thailand, and the United States.
"I think it is coming through the process of bottling the water.
Even smaller particles were more common — averaging about 325 per liter.
Experts cautioned that the extent of the risk to human health posed by such contamination remains unclear.
"We know that they are connected to these synthetic chemicals in the environment and we know that plastics are providing kind of a means to get those chemicals into our bodies."
– Time to ditch plastic?
– Previous research by Orb Media has found plastic particles in tap water, too, but on a smaller scale.
"It’s more urgent now than ever before to make plastic water bottles a thing of the past."

A recently released study tested 259 water bottles from 11 brands sold across nine countries, including the United States, and found that 93% of those tested contained microplastic contamination.
Researcher Sherri Mason of the State University of New York at Fredonia told AFP that 65% of the plastic particles found were "fragments" of plastic, and included the plastic used to make some bottle caps.
More: 94% of U.S. tap water contaminated by plastic fibers — including from the faucets at Trump Tower More: Our trash is harming the deepest fish in the ocean "I think it is coming through the process of bottling the water," Mason told AFP.
So, is it dangerous to drink bottled water?
Researchers caution that it’s unclear what effect microplastics can have on the human body.
And, microplastics have been found in everything ranging from fish and shellfish found at the super market to tap water.
"There are connections to increases in certain kinds of cancer to lower sperm count to increases in conditions like ADHD and autism," said Mason.
"We know that they are connected to these synthetic chemicals in the environment and we know that plastics are providing kind of a means to get those chemicals into our bodies."
The World Health Organization confirmed to BBC that it is launching a review into the potential risks of drinking bottled water.
USA TODAY has reached out to the International Bottled Water Association for comment.

The brands considered by the study included Aquafina, Bisleri and Nestle Pure Life among others.
It found that 93% of the samples were contaminated with plastic particles.
If you included the smaller particles (6.5-100 μm), the average rose up to 325 microplastic particles per litre.
Researchers came to the conclusion that “contamination is at least partially coming from the packaging and/or the bottling process itself.” The study found that the polymers found in the water (54%) matched the make of common plastic used to make the cap of the water bottles.
“Averaging across lots by brand, Nestle Pure Life and Gerolsteiner showed the highest average densities at 930 and 807 MPP/L, respectively, while San Pellegrino and Minalba showed the lowest microplastic contamination with 30.0 and 63.1 MPP/L, respectively,” the study says.
Interestingly, when the researchers studied samples of the same brand which came in glass bottles instead of plastic, there was considerably less plastic contamination in the water packaged in glass bottles.
“This indicates that some of the microplastic contamination is likely coming from the water source, but a larger contribution might be originating from the packaging itself,” the study says.
“We found roughly twice as many plastic particles (>100 um) within bottled water as compared to tap water on average (10.4 vs. 5.45 particles/L).
While fibers made of 97% of the microplastics within the tap water study, they only composed 13% of the particles within bottled water,” the study says.
“[…] the data seems to suggest that at least some of the plastic contamination may be coming from the industrial process of bottling the water itself.

Drinking from a plastic water bottle likely means ingesting microplastic particles, a new study claims, prompting fresh concerns — and calls for scientific research — on the possible health implications of widespread plastics pollution.
A study carried out on more than 250 water bottles sourced from 11 brands in nine different countries revealed that Microplastic contamination was nearly universal, found in more than 90% of the samples.
The study, by journalism organization Orb Media and researchers at the State University of New York at Fredonia, found an average of 10.4 microplastic particles about the width of a human hair per liter.
That’s about twice the level of contamination discovered in the group’s earlier study on the ubiquitous plastic contamination in tap water across the globe, with the highest rate found in the U.S.
Previous studies have found that a large portion of the microplastic particles found in our oceans, lakes and rivers, as well as in fish stomachs, can be traced back to the washing of synthetic clothes.
In the case of bottled water, Orb’s new study indicated contamination was partly the result of plastic packaging, and partly the fault of the bottling process.
The survey included brands like Aquafina, Dasani, Evian, Nestlé and San Pellegrino.
It’s unclear what effect, if any, this consumption of tiny bits of plastics has on human health.
As much as 90% of ingested plastic could pass through a human body, but some of it may end up lodged in the gut, or traveling through the lymphatic system, according to research by the European Food Safety Authority.
“We don’t know all the chemicals in plastics, even… There’s so many unknowns here,” Jane Muncke, chief scientist at the Zurich-based Food Packaging Forum, told Orb.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will assess the latest research into the spread and impact of so-called microplastics – particles that are small enough to be ingested.
There is no evidence that microplastics can undermine human health but the WHO wants to assess the state of knowledge.
It comes after journalism organisation Orb Media found plastic particles in many major brands of bottled water.
The study screened more than 250 bottles of water from 11 different brands bought in nine countries – the largest investigation of its kind.
Bruce Gordon, coordinator of the WHO’s global work on water and sanitation, told BBC News that the key question was whether a lifetime of eating or drinking particles of plastic could have an effect.
"When we think about the composition of the plastic, whether there might be toxins in it, to what extent they might carry harmful constituents, what actually the particles might do in the body – there’s just not the research there to tell us.
"We normally have a ‘safe’ limit but to have a safe limit, to define that, we need to understand if these things are dangerous, and if they occur in water at concentrations that are dangerous."
Mr Gordon said that he did not want to alarm anyone, and also emphasised that a far greater waterborne threat comes in countries where supplies can be contaminated with sewage.
But he said he recognised that people hearing about the presence of microplastics in their drinking water would turn to the WHO for advice.
"The public are obviously going to be concerned about whether this is going to make them sick in the short term and the long term,” he said.

The tests, carried out at the State University of New York in Fredonia and co-ordinated by US-based journalism organisation Orb Media, found an average of 10 plastic particles per litre of water, each larger than a human hair.
Researchers at the UEA pioneered a rapid screening method to identify microscopic plastic particles – as small as a few micrometres – in water by staining them using fluorescent Nile Red dye.
Dr Andrew Mayes, who led the research team at the UEA’s School of Chemistry, said: “We are becoming increasingly aware of microplastics in the environment and their potentially harmful effects, but their prevalence in other areas has been much less studied.
It is the largest and most comprehensive study of water I know of to date, and almost all were contaminated to some degree “This study analysed more than 250 bottles from 27 lots and 11 different brands from around the world, so it is the largest and most comprehensive study of water I know of to date, and almost all were contaminated to some degree.
“The method we pioneered here at UEA was used, and it is very pleasing to see it used to facilitate this type of large-scale study, which would have been hugely time-consuming and prohibitively expensive using conventional approaches.
“What the results don’t show is where these plastic particles are coming from – but I would expect that most is coming from the processing and packing process, though some may be coming from the original water source in some cases.
“What we do know is that microplastics are in the environment all around us – and they’re accumulating.
Bruce Gordon, co-ordinator of the WHO’s global work on water and sanitation, told BBC News that the key question was whether a lifetime of eating or drinking particles of plastic could have an effect.
He said: “When we think about the composition of the plastic, whether there might be toxins in it, to what extent they might carry harmful constituents, what actually the particles might do in the body – there’s just not the research there to tell us.
“We normally have a ‘safe’ limit but to have a safe limit, to define that, we need to understand if these things are dangerous, and if they occur in water at concentrations that are dangerous.” A UK Food Standards Agency spokeswoman said: “Based on current information, including the evaluation on the safety of microplastics exposure from food undertaken by the European Food Safety Authority, it is unlikely that the levels of microplastic particles reported in this study to be present in bottled water would cause harm to consumers.

Shocking Study shows that Nearly All Bottled Water may Contain Innumerable Plastic Bits and Pieces Research in Australia shows that consumers of mineral water in plastic bottles ought to pay closer attention to what they chug-a-lug so carelessly.
According to the seminal study, most of these plastic mineral water bottles contain microplastic beads that are detrimental to health and well-being.
While more research needs to be done to confirm the raw findings, it is a fact that all is not well regarding these so-called healthy alternatives to tap water.
They came from 19 different locales which were situated in 9 countries of the global village.
In every single liter of the samples of water taken from these bottles, there were over 10.4 plastic particles.
Over 93% of the brands contained plastic microbeads made from polypropylene, nylon and polyethylene terephthalate (this is found in PET bottles).
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Foreground — White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan — Opaque Semi-Opaque Background — White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan — Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window — White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan — Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Default Monospace Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Sans-Serif Casual Script Small Caps Defaults Done he brands included such big and reliable names as Evian, Nestle and San Pellegrino.
These were commonly found in supermarkets all over “The Land Down Under”.
The mean number of particles per liter of bottled water was 325.

Gordon also stressed that in countries where tap water is contaminated with sewage this is a far greater known risk than microplastics.
Please add what the existing evidence on the effects of microplastics on human health says Edit The new study, commissioned by not-for-profit journalism organization Orb Media, used a dye called Nile Red which binds to pieces of plastic, and can be seen under particular light wavelengths.
After screening 259 bottles of water from 11 brands, Professor Sherri Mason found an average of 10 plastic particles per liter of water, each larger than a human hair, and 93 percent showed some sign of microplastic contamination.
Only 17 of the bottles had no plastic particles at all.
“We still cannot understand how the study reached the conclusions it did,” said the company.
It’s really showing that this is everywhere.” The brands of bottled water tested were: Aqua (Danone), Aquafina (PepsiCo), Bisleri (Bisleri International), Dasani (Coca-Cola), Epura (PepsiCo), Evian (Danone), Gerolsteiner (Gerolsteiner Brunnen), Minalba (Grupo Edson Queiroz), Nestlé Pure Life (Nestlé), San Pellegrino (Nestlé), and Wahaha (Hangzhou Wahaha Group).
The Guardian noted that the study has not yet been published in a journal or been through scientific peer review and the UK’s Food Standards Agency said it was unlikely that the level of microplastics found in the water could cause harm.
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