QUESTION: What did the ANSES study find regarding microplastics in drinks?
Difficulty: Summiteer (Level 3)
A study by France’s food safety agency, ANSES, found that drinks such as water, soda, beer, and wine in glass bottles contain more microplastics than those in plastic bottles.
The researchers found an average of around 100 microplastic particles per litre in glass bottles of soft drinks, lemonade, iced tea and beer. That was five to 50 times higher than the rate detected in plastic bottles or metal cans.
“We expected the opposite result,” said PhD student Iseline Chaib, who conducted the research.
They observed that the particles emerging from the samples had the same shape, colour and polymer composition, indicating they were the same type of plastic as the paint on the caps of the glass bottles.
The paint on the caps also had “tiny scratches, invisible to the naked eye, probably due to friction between the caps when they were stored,” the agency said.
This could then “release particles onto the surface of the caps”, it added.
