Do you know? nearly two lakh plastic fragments enter our bodies when we drink one litre of bottled water

Most of us depend on bottled water when we go out. However, how many of us know that drinking bottled water can adversely affect our health? A recent study has claimed that one litre of bottled water contains as many as 2,40,000 detectable plastic fragments. It is difficult to detect these plastic fragments as they are nanoplastic. This has been mentioned in the study published by the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.

Earlier, the presence of microplastics was detected in bottled water. However, nanoplastics pose a greater threat to human health than these microplastics. As per the study, a litre of bottled water contained some 240,000 detectable plastic fragments -- 10 to 100 times greater than previous estimates, which were based mainly on larger sizes. Nanoplastics are so tiny that, unlike microplastics, they can pass through the intestines and lungs directly into the bloodstream and travel from there to organs including the heart and brain. They can invade individual cells, and cross through the placenta to the bodies of unborn babies.

On testing three popular brands of bottled water sold in the US, the researchers spotted 110,000 to 370,000 particles in each litre. 90 per cent of these particles were nanoplastics, while the rest were microplastics.