For most of us, plastic is not a welcome dietary supplement.
What the Research Found According to a recent study at the State University of New York, tiny pieces of plastic, or microplastics, are present in most of the bottled water on the market.
Researchers analyzed 259 bottles of water from 11 different brands and nine countries, finding tiny pieces of plastic in more than 90 percent of them.
Microplastics, like nylon and polypropylene, were found in all but 17 bottles and are thought to be introduced during the packaging process.
Plastic Bottles’ Carbon Footprint Not only do manufactured water bottles contain pesky microplastics, they almost always end up as litter or garbage.
America’s plastic recycling rate is a lowly 23 percent, resulting in billions of plastic water bottles ending up in landfills, rivers, oceans and our neighborhood streets each year.
Plastic water bottles have a sizable carbon footprint, too.
What You Can Do Avoid consuming potentially dangerous microplastics by drinking tap water from a reusable water bottle instead of buying single-use plastic bottles.
Stainless steel and glass bottles are popular, eco-friendly hydration choices on the market; each has its strengths and weaknesses.
Glass is fragile and weighs more, but it’s more easily recycled.

A world health group is now studying what that could mean.
The research started after a group at the State University of New York at Fredonia found microplastics in tap water.
Bottled water is bottled tap water, so the researchers wanted to find out if there is just as much plastic in bottled water.
They discovered there is more.
"So, think of a period at the end of the sentence or a grain of salt or a grain of sand."
The team found twice as much plastic in bottled water as it had in tap water.
A bottle of Evian water had up to 256 pieces of plastic.
Aquafina had nearly 1,300 pieces of plastic and one bottle of Nestle Pure Life had more than 10,000 pieces.
"On average, within every liter of bottled water, we tested we found 325 pieces of microplastic," Mason said.
The plastic found in the bottled water is the same kind used to make the bottle and cap.

Bottled water is marketed as clean and pure, but new research shows the water in a bottle comes with hundreds of little pieces of plastic.
>>>Why you need to read the label on your bottled water Channel 11 first got tipped off to this story by our sister station WSB-TV in Atlanta.
What that toxicologist could tell us about what they know, and don’t know, about the impact of plastic in bottled water on our health, TONIGHT on Channel 11 News at 5 p.m. Channel 11 sent a team up to SUNY Fredonia in New York, three hours north of Pittsburgh, to meet up with the team behind this discovery.
These are the same researchers who looked at plastic in tap water.
This time, researchers looked at water bottles from the most popular brands and found something in common; they all had microplastics in the water.
The research also found the plastic contamination was worse than the plastic found in tap water.
While there, we were surprised to discover just how much plastic was found in bottled water.
The researchers had discovered all the plastic, but did not know what health effect it would have on consumers.
Everyone Channel 11 talked to in Pittsburgh had a similar reaction to us about the research.
© 2018 Cox Media Group.

Bottled water is marketed as clean and pure, but new research shows the water in a bottle comes with hundreds of little pieces of plastic.
>>>Why you need to read the label on your bottled water Channel 11 first got tipped off to this story by our sister station in Atlanta.
What that toxicologist could tell us about what they know, and don’t know, about the impact of plastic in bottled water on our health, Thursday on Channel 11 News at 5 p.m. Channel 11 sent a team up to SUNY Fredonia in New York, three hours north of Pittsburgh, to meet up with the team behind this discovery.
These were the same researchers who looked at plastic in tap water.
This time, researchers looked at water bottles from the most popular brands and found something in common; they all had microplastics in the water.
The research also found the plastic contamination was worse than the plastic found in tap water.
While there, we were surprised to discover just how much plastic was found in bottled water.
The researchers had discovered all the plastic, but did not know what health effect it would have on consumers.
Everyone Channel 11 talked to in Pittsburgh had a similar reaction to us about the research.
© 2018 Cox Media Group.

Tiny plastic bits contaminate bottled water sold around the world, a new study finds.
Researchers tested more than 250 bottles of water.
Mason and her team tested the water on behalf of Orb Media, a nonprofit journalism group based in the United States.
Tiny bits of plastic have turned up in rivers, lakes and oceans.
Other microplastic beads go in some toothpastes and skin-care products.
The most common type of plastic that Mason and her team found in bottled water was polypropylene (Pah-lee-PROH-puh-leen).
So how do they get into bottled water?
And earlier studies had found plastic bits could come out in tap water.
The new study is the first to find microplastics in bottled water, its authors say.
In fact, Mason notes, her team found at least twice as many particles in bottled water as earlier tests had found in tap water.

The eco-friendly water filtration systems company Soma and the organization Parley for the Oceans have teamed up to create a limited edition product designed especially for Starbucks.
They recently announced the debut of their reusable water bottle with a sleeve made out of Parley Ocean Plastic – a material created from upcycled marine plastic waste.
Moreover, a portion of every sale will go to support initiatives of the Parley Ocean Plastic Program and implementation of the Parley AIR Strategy which calls to “Avoid plastic wherever possible, Intercept plastic waste, Redesign your life.” “Soma is excited to partner with Parley and Starbucks to support this movement to create change.
Parley for the Oceans is a global network aiming to raise awareness of the plastic pollution crisis and collaborate on solutions that will curb our use of plastics and help the oceans.
Its Parley Ocean Plastic is a range of materials created from plastic waste intercepted from the oceans, shorelines, and in coastal communities.
We all have a role to play.
This bottle is another reminder of that fact and the beginning of a new collaboration in the movement for solutions.” This is amazing news considering the extent of our current plastic crisis.
If we want to protect the ocean, its many inhabitants, and ourselves from the negative ramifications of plastic waste, we all need to participate in the effort to crush plastic.
To find out how you can help the planet in your everyday life by using less disposable plastics, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign!
Image source: Soma Water/Facebook

Single-use bottled water will be phased out by May 2019, according to McGill.
The move aims to raise awareness about bottled water’s negative social and environmental impacts.
McGill’s announcement follows similar environmental initiatives on other campuses — many Canadian universities, including both Queen’s University and the University of Toronto, have committed to becoming water-bottle-free.
According to Greenpeace, 10 per cent of all the plastic produced ends up in the oceans each year.
Ninety per cent of the cost of a water bottle is the packaging, shipping, and marketing, rather than the actual product.
Given Western’s commitment to sustainability and waste reduction, phasing out plastic water bottles would be a good idea for our campus.
Plastic is a significant environmental hazard, and water fountains paired with reusable bottles is a good alternative.
There are many water fountains on campus, and most have been retrofitted to include hands-free bottle filling stations.
Western could also do things to ease the transition; for example, increasing the number of water fountains on campus or selling reusable water bottles for a reduced price.
With students becoming increasingly environmentally conscientious, reusable water bottles are now a common sight around campus.

They tested popular brands like Evian, Dasani and Nestle Pure Life.
Scientists found an average of more than 10 plastic particles per one-liter of bottled water.
Researchers tested more than 250 bottles from 11 brands purchased in 19 locations in nine countries reveal contamination with plastic including polypropylene, nylon, and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Here are the brands included in the study: 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) Wahaha (Hangzhou Wahaha Group) According to Orb Media, two leading brands confirmed their products contained the microplastic, but say the study significantly overstates the amount.
Researchers say the size of the plastic ranged from the width of a human hair down to the size of a red blood cell.
Some bottles had thousands.
A few effectively had no plastic at all.
One brand had a concentration of more than 10,000 particles per liter.
Take a look at the number of plastic particles in each brand’s bottles by clicking on the image below.
Right now, scientists don’t know the impact the plastic has on the human body.

Project Orb Media, a nonprofit, global journalism organization focusing on food, water, energy, health, education, environment, trade and governance, commissioned scientists at the State University of New York in Fredonia to analyze bottled water.
The study found that a single bottle of water can contain dozens or possibly even thousands of microscopic plastic particles.
Researchers performed tests on 259 individual bottles from 27 different lots across 11 brands purchased from 19 locations in 9 countries.
Preliminary tests found an average of 10.4 tiny plastic particles in each one-liter water bottle.
Further testing with a microscope and fluorescent dye detected approximately 315 microparticles per bottle, which the scientists believe are plastic as well.
In an unrelated study commissioned by an awareness and activism group called The Story of Stuff Project, Ocean Analytics analyzed 19 different bottled water brands for microparticle contamination.
“Although we don’t fully understand yet the health implications of consuming microplastic,” Abigail Barrows of Ocean Analytics told The Story of Stuff, “the preliminary results of this study show that people are directly ingesting plastic particles when drinking most types of bottled water.” Orb Media performed another study, again commissioning researchers from The State University of New York at Fredonia, testing drinking water from another source: taps.
“There are certain commons that connect us all to each other,” Sherri A. Mason, Ph.D. of the State University of New York at Fredonia told Orb Media, “air, water, soil, and what we have universally found time and time again is if you contaminate any of those commons, it gets in everything.” “As part of our continuous review of new evidence on water quality, we will review the very scarce available evidence with the objective of identifying evidence gaps, and establishing a research agenda to inform a more thorough risk assessment,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to the National Post.
BPA, a synthetic compound found in some plastics, has been shown to have possible effects on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children.
There is also a possible link between BPA and increased blood pressure.

According to the study done by Orb Media and State University of New York at Fredonia, 93 percent of the 250 bottles tested were contaminated with microplastics.
However, some bottles had concentrations as high as 10,000 plastic pieces for every liter of water.
The brands tested were Aqua, Aquafina, Bisleri, Dasani, Epura, Evian, Gerolsteiner, Minalba, Nestle´ Pure Life, San Pellegrino and Wahaha.
They sourced the bottles from 11 different countries.
However, according to Fox 28, the study has not been published in a journal and it has not been through scientific peer review.
International Bottled Water Association President and CEO Joe Doss criticized the findings, saying that the “non-peer reviewed study” aims to “do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers,” USA Today reported.
But SUNY Fredonia chemistry professor Sherri Mason, one of the study’s researchers, said it’s a concerning development that deserves closer scrutiny.
“It’s not about pointing fingers at particular brands; it’s really showing that this is everywhere, that plastic has become such a pervasive material in our society, and it’s pervading water – all of these products that we consume at a very basic level,” Mason told BBC.
In response to the study, the World Health Organization confirmed to BBC that it will be launching a new investigation to review the potential risks of plastic in drinking water.
An unrelated study conducted by the campaign group Story of Stuff tested 19 major water brands in the U.S. and found that microfibers were widespread as well.