Occurrence of microplastics in tap and bottled water, and food packaging: A narrative review on current knowledge

Abstract

Nowadays, microplastic has been detected in many environmental samples, including aquatic and terrestrial environments. However, few studies recently have addressed their attention to microplastic contamination in different drinking sources and food packages. This review paper has narrated those few findings in brief. Literature showed that different pieces of microplastic fragments, e.g., polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene (PE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), etc. are detected in plastic drinking bottle, tap water, and food packaging containers. Microplastic fragmentation may be associated with mechanical stress, UV radiation, low plastic material quality, aging factor, and atmospheric deposition. Besides these, microplastic is a hub of different chemical compounds and can also retain other complex materials from the surroundings. This makes the microplastic contamination even more complicated and difficult to detect them accurately in a single method. Additionally, one of the common practices at the community level is the long-time repeated usage of plastic drinking bottles and food boxes that subsequently cause microplastic leaching and potential health threats to consumers. This narrative study summarizes the current scenario of microplastic contamination from drinking bottles and food containers and emphasizes doing more quality research in this subtle but highly imposed field to understand potential exposure better.

Keywords: Drinking bottled water; Food container; Health risks; Microplastic; Tap water.