The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Anthropogenic contamination of tap water, beer, and sea salt
Open accessAbstract
Plastic pollution has been well documented in natural environments, including the open waters and sediments within lakes and rivers, the open ocean and even the air, but less attention has been paid to synthetic polymers in human consumables. Since multiple toxicity studies indicate risks to human health when plastic particles are ingested, more needs to be known about the presence and abundance of anthropogenic particles in human foods and beverages. This study investigates the presence of anthropogenic particles in 159 samples of globally sourced tap water, 12 brands of Laurentian Great Lakes beer, and 12 brands of commercial sea salt. Of the tap water samples analyzed, 81% were found to contain anthropogenic particles. The majority of these particles were fibers (98.3%) between 0.1-5 mm in length. The range was 0 to 61 particles/L, with an overall mean of 5.45 particles/L. Anthropogenic debris was found in each brand of beer and salt. Of the extracted particles, over 99% were fibers. After adjusting for particles found in lab blanks for both salt and beer, the average number of particles found in beer was 4.05 particles/L with a range of 0 to 14.3 particles/L and the average number of particles found in each brand of salt was 212 particles/kg with a range of 46.7 to 806 particles/kg. Based on consumer guidelines, our results indicate the average person ingests over 5,800 particles of synthetic debris from these three sources annually, with the largest contribution coming from tap water (88%).
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Life in the “plastisphere”: microbial communities on plastic marine debris
Zettler, E. R., Mincer, T. J., & Amaral-Zettler, L. A. (2013) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/es401288x · Cited by 3,368
Plastic debris in the open ocean
Cózar, A., Echevarría, F., González-Gordillo, J. I., Irigoien, X., Úbeda, B., Hernández-León, S., Palma, Á. T., Navarro, S., García-de-Lomas, J., Ruiz, A., et al. (2014) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1314705111 · Cited by 3,133
Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife
Teuten, E. L., Saquing, J. M., Knappe, D. R. U., Barlaz, M. A., Jonsson, S., Björn, A., Rowland, S. J., Thompson, R. C., Galloway, T. S., Yamashita, R., et al. (2009) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0284 · Cited by 2,938
Eerkes-Medrano, D., Thompson, R. C., & Aldridge, D. C. (2015) · Water Research · doi:10.1016/j.watres.2015.02.012 · Cited by 2,638
Lusher, A. L., McHugh, M., & Thompson, R. C. (2013) · Marine Pollution Bulletin · doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.11.028 · Cited by 2,075
The deep sea is a major sink for microplastic debris
Woodall, L. C., Sanchez-Vidal, A., Canals, M., Paterson, G. L. J., Coppock, R., Sleight, V., Calafat, A., Rogers, A. D., Narayanaswamy, B. E., & Thompson, R. C. (2014) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.140317 · Cited by 1,946
Microplastic pollution in the surface waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes
Eriksen, M., Mason, S., Wilson, S., Box, C., Zellers, A., Edwards, W., Farley, H., & Amato, S. (2013) · Marine Pollution Bulletin · doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.10.007 · Cited by 1,937
Self-citationMicroplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments
Van Cauwenberghe, L., Vanreusel, A., Mees, J., & Janssen, C. R. (2013) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2013.08.013 · Cited by 1,575
Plastic Debris in 29 Great Lakes Tributaries: Relations to Watershed Attributes and Hydrology
Baldwin, A. K., Corsi, S. R., & Mason, S. A. (2016) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/acs.est.6b02917 · Cited by 739
Self-citation
Research works printed but not linked: 26
- EJ Carpenter, 1972, Plastics on the Sargasso Sea surface, Science, 1240, 10.1126/science.175.4027.1240 · DOI · Paper page
- JB Buchanan, 1971, Pollution by synthetic fibres, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 23
- M Eriksen, 2014, Plastic pollution in the world’s oceans: more than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea, PLOS ONE
- I Acosta-Coley, 2014, Microplastic resin pellets on an urban tropical beach in Colombia, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 435
- S Mason, 2017, Pelagic plastic pollution within the surface waters of Lake Michigan, USA, Journal of Great Lakes Research, 753
- RW Obbard, 2014, Global warming releases microplastic legacy in Arctic Sea ice, Earth’s Future, 315, 10.1002/2014EF000240 · DOI · Paper page
- HR Cousin, 2015, The frequency of ingested plastic debris and its effects on body condition of Short-tailed Shearwater (Puffinus tenuirostris) pre-fledging chicks in Tasmania, Australia, CSIRO, 6
- JA Van Franeker, 2015, Seabirds, gyres and global trends in plastic pollution, Environmental Pollution, 89, 10.1016/j.envpol.2015.02.034 · DOI · Paper page
- MC Fossi, 2012, Are baleen whales exposed to the threat of microplastics? A case study of the Mediterranean fin whale (Balaenoptera psysalus), Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2374, 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2012.08.013 · DOI · Paper page
- ML Tyalor, 2016, Plastic microfibre ingestion by deep-sea organisms, Scientific Reports, 6
- AL Andrady, 2009, Applications and societal benefits of plastics, Phil. Trans. R. Soc, 1977, 10.1098/rstb.2008.0304 · DOI · Paper page
- CM Rochman, 2014, Long-term sorption of metals is similar among plastic types: implications for plastic debris in aquatic environments, PLOS ONE
- A McCormick, 2014, Microplastic is an abundant and distinct microbial habitat in an urban river, Environmental Science & Technology, 11863, 10.1021/es503610r · DOI · Paper page
- Y Mato, 2001, Plastic resin pellets as a transport medium for toxic chemicals in the marine environment, Environmental Science and Technology, 318, 10.1021/es0010498 · DOI · Paper page
- A Bakir, 2013, Enhanced desorption of persistent organic pollutants from microplastics under simulated physiological conditions, Environmental Pollution, 16
- EL Teuten, 2009, Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife, The Royal Society of Publishing, 2027
- GF Schirinzi, 2017, Cytotoxic effects of commonly used nanomaterials and microplastics on cerebral and epithelial cells, Environmental Research, 579, 10.1016/j.envres.2017.08.043 · DOI · Paper page
- J Reisser, 2014, Millimeter-sized marine plastics: a new pelagic habitat for microorganisms and invertebrates, PLOS ONE
- DKA Barnes, 2002, Biodiversity: invasions by marine life on plastic debris, Nature, 808, 10.1038/416808a · DOI · Paper page
- M Wagner, 2014, (Micro)plastics and the environment, Environmental Sciences Europe
- S Sharma, 2017, Microplastic pollution, a threat to marine ecosystem and human health: a short review, Microplastic pollution, a threat to marine ecosystem and human health: a short review, 21530
- G Liebezeit, 2014, Synthetic particles as contaminants in German beers, Food Additives & Contaminants, 1574, 10.1080/19440049.2014.945099 · DOI · Paper page
- D Yang, 2015, Microplastic pollution in table salt from China, Environmental Science & Technology, 13622, 10.1021/acs.est.5b03163 · DOI · Paper page
- A Karami, 2017, The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries, Scientific Reports, 1
- ME Iniguez, 2017, Microplastics in spanish table salt, Scientific Reports
- C Rochman, 2015, Anthropogenic debris in seafood: plastic debris and fibers from textiles in fish and bivalves sold for human consumption, Science Reports, 5
Cited by
Plasticenta: First evidence of microplastics in human placenta
Ragusa, A., Svelato, A., Santacroce, C., Catalano, P., Notarstefano, V., Carnevali, O., Papa, F., Rongioletti, M. C. A., Baiocco, F., Draghi, S., et al. (2021) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2020.106274 · Cited by 3,474
Human Consumption of Microplastics
Cox, K. D., Covernton, G. A., Davies, H. L., Dower, J. F., Juanes, F., & Dudas, S. E. (2019) · Environmental Science & Technology · doi:10.1021/acs.est.9b01517 · Cited by 2,745
Environmental exposure to microplastics: An overview on possible human health effects
Prata, J. C., da Costa, J. P., Lopes, I., Duarte, A. C., & Rocha-Santos, T. (2020) · Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.134455 · Cited by 2,690
Microplastics in Freshwaters and Drinking Water: Critical Review and Assessment of Data Quality
Koelmans, A. A., Mohamed Nor, N. H., Hermsen, E., Kooi, M., Mintenig, S. M., & De France, J. (2019) · Water Research · doi:10.1016/j.watres.2019.02.054 · Cited by 2,535
Bioplastics for a circular economy
Rosenboom, J.-G., Langer, R., & Traverso, G. (2022) · Nature Reviews Materials · doi:10.1038/s41578-021-00407-8 · Cited by 2,116
Metadata
- Authors
- Kosuth, M., Mason, S. A., & Wattenberg, E. V.
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2018-04-11
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e0194970
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2808334666
- Cited by
- 1,244
- References
- 9
- FWCI
- 27.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- Funders
- Wright Scholarship
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Anthropogenic contamination of tap water, beer, and sea salt. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1371/journal.pone.0194970
- The paper
- Kosuth, M., Mason, S. A., & Wattenberg, E. V. (2018). Anthropogenic contamination of tap water, beer, and sea salt. PLOS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194970
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
