• People worldwide could be ingesting 5 g of microscopic plastic particles every week, equivalent in weight to a credit card.
• Coming mostly from tap and especially bottled water, nearly invisible bits of polymer were also found in shellfish, beer and salt.
• The findings, drawn from 52 peer-reviewed studies, are the first to estimate the sheer weight of plastics consumed by individual humans about 250 g over the course of a year.
• Another study calculated that the average American eats and drinks in about 45,000 plastics particles smaller than 130 microns annually, while breathing in roughly the same number.
• In the last two decades, the world has produced as much plastic as during the rest of history, and the industry is set to grow by 4% a year until 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research.