Microplastics and nanoplastics in food, water, and beverages; part I. occurrence
Open accessAbstract
In recent years, the presence of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) has been assessed in several environmental matrices, including the marine environment and agricultural soil, suggesting those pollutants are likely to enter the food web. However, there is still a severe lack of information about the occurrence of plastic particles in our food, partially due to the multidimensionality of the data necessary to fully describe MP contamination and the consequent difficulty in validating analytical methods. In this review, consisting of two parts, preliminary results about the presence of MPs in food, water, and beverages are summarized (Part I) and several approaches for the characterization of micro- and nano-sized plastic particles are reported and discussed (Part II). The information gathered in this manuscript highlights the need for a more comprehensive knowledge of MP/NP occurrence along the food chain in order to assess the food safety risk related to those contaminants and implement strategies for their monitoring in products intended for human consumption. Therefore, an outlook of the field towards a coherent, consistent, and policy-relevant data collection and standardization is included in this review.
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Microplastics have been widely found in human foods, drinks, and product packaging, and bottled water is an important source of microplastics ingested daily.
“Microplastics have been widely found in human foods (50), drinks (51), and product packaging (52–55), among which bottled water is of particular interest for being an important source of microplastics to be ingested in daily life (56–59).”
From Rapid single-particle chemical imaging of nanoplastics by SRS microscopy (2024) · cites this paper as [51]
Section 1 (Introduction; page unavailable) reports microplastics in drinking water and several foods and beverages, while §2.7 discusses their release from food packaging. Section 2.6 reviews eleven bottled-water studies, supporting its identification as a potential ingestion route. But the paper says intake data are insufficient for a reliable assessment and does not establish how important bottled water is as a source of daily microplastic ingestion. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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References 160 · Cited by 180
Research works printed but not linked: 4
- G.A. Covernton, B. Collicutt, H.J. Gurney-smith, C.M. Pearce, J.F. Dower, P.S. Ross, S.E. Dudas, Microplastics in bivalves and their habitat in relation to shellfish aquaculture proximity in coastal British Columbia, Canada, Aquac, Environ. Interact. 11 (2019) 357e374. https://doi.org/10.3354/aei00316% 0AAQUACULTURE. · DOI
- FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020, Sustainability in action, Rome, 2020. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9229en. · DOI · Paper page
- E.M.F. Kallenbach, E.S. Rodland, N.T. Buenaventura, R. Hurley, Microplastics in terrestrial and freshwater environments, in: M.S. Bank (Editor), Micro- plastic Environ. Pattern Process. Environ. Contam. Remediat. Manag., Springer, 2022. http://www.springer.com/series/15836.
- E. Danopoulos, M. Twiddy, J.M. Rotchell, Microplastic contamination of drinking water, A systematic review (2020) 1e23. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0236838. · DOI · Paper page
- Authors
- Vitali, C., Peters, R. J. B., Janssen, H.-G., & Nielen, M. W. F.
- Affiliations
- Wageningen University & Research (NL)
- Unilever Foods Innovation Centre (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Vitali, Clementina
- Venue
- TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2023-02
- Volume
- 159
- Pages
- 116670
- ISSN
- 0165-9936 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4229445939
- Cited by
- 180
- References
- 160
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 61 · 2024: 52 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 7
- FWCI
- 8.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- European Commission (HORIZON2020, 860775)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Analytical Chemistry › Analytical chemistry methods development
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
- Keywords
- microplastics, nanoplastics, food contamination, drinking water, beverages, food safety, food chain, environmental monitoring, data standardization, analytical method validation
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