Discussion

The air throughout our homes is infused with microplastics. But there are things you can do to breathe less of them

rusch: I wonder when and if microplastics will get it's Asbestos moment. Obviously they are not as carcinogenic, but it seems we don't have the full picture, and microplastics are present at an insanely higher degree than asbestos where.

phyzome: TV ads 20 years from now: "If you or a family member have suffered from Spandex Kidney, you may be entitled to compensation..."

schiffern: https://archive.ph/UcCq6Saying HEPA filters remove "99%" of microplastic is pretty misleading.Most of the mass in airborne particles is in the larger sizes of visible dust. However these particles will "fall out" before they reach the air purifier.The best advice isn't "use only HEPA" or (an odd one, from this article) "use filters with multiple stages," it's to have an air purifier where the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) is matched to room size. For filtering large dust, you should aim for 6-8 Air Changes per Hour (ACH).Most people dramatically under-size their air purifiers, or run them on a very low fan setting, and then they throw up their hands and just say that air purifiers don't work.

mcny: > Most people dramatically under-size their air purifiers, or run them on a very low fan setting, and then they throw up their hands and just say that air purifiers don't work.I believe something is better than nothing here. One of the biggest complaints against air filters is noise so maybe a good compromise would be to run them at full speed and full noise for a certain amount of time or something when nobody is in the room?

schiffern: A false sense of security can be worse than nothing, because it prevents you from seeking out actually effective options.I too would like such a "shy" air purifier, but manufacturers always seem to go the other way: when occupancy is detected they increase the fan speed.Best option IMO is just to get an air purifier with a good CADR-to-decibel ratio and then (again) size it correctly. A surprisingly good option is something called the Airfanta 3 Pro, which is basically like those wildfire filter boxes except it uses PC fans.

sigmoid10: Given the fact that they are so ubiquitous and yet no causal relation between microplastics and any health issue whatsoever has been identified [1], I'd say a lot of this reporting is fear mongering by the eco/organic industry, aimed at gullible people who know very little about science. Not as insane and unphysical as electro smog, but definitely nowhere near asbestos. The linked article even goes into detail how warped the perceptions are among the general population. If you're really concerned about health effects of common pollutants, there are much bigger risks with actual proven causal effects in everyday compounds.[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12620896/

strogonoff: > This followed another paper in early 2024, where a group of Italian researchers identified microplastics in plaques found in the carotid arteries – a pair of major vessels which deliver blood to the brain – of people with early-stage cardiovascular disease. This linked their presence to worsening disease progression. Over the following three years, individuals carrying these microplastics in their plaques had a 4.5-fold greater risk of stroke, heart attack or sudden death.> Then in February 2025, another group of scientists identified microplastics in the brains of human cadavers. Most notably, those who had been diagnosed with dementia prior to their death had up to 10 times as much plastic in their brains compared to those without the condition. "We were shocked," says Matthew Campen, a University of New Mexico toxicology professor who led this study.https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250723-how-do-the-mic...> In 2017 the European Chemicals Agency concluded that BPA should be listed as a substance of very high concern due to its properties as an endocrine disruptor.[30] In 2023, the European Food Safety Authority re-evaluated the safety of BFA and significantly reduced tolerable daily intake (TDI) to 0.2 nanograms (0.2 billionths of a gram), 20,000 times lower than the previous TDI from 2015.> In 2012, the United States' Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the use of BPA in baby bottles intended for children under 12 months.[31] The Natural Resources Defense Council called the move inadequate, saying the FDA needed to ban BPA from all food packaging.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_Bisphenol_A

sigmoid10: This is exactly the kind of fear mongering reporting I was talking about and explains the human perception in the article I linked. If you look at the brains of dead people with dementia, you'll also find more aluminum, which has caused people to panic about antiperspirants. But there is zero actual causal evidence that Al exposure causes dementia, if you do the science right.

OutOfHere: The way to get air purifiers to really work well is to install them at the air intake, i.e. in the windows, or where the central air intake is, so all incoming air passes through them.

dijit: Realistically, the best thing you can do to reduce your microplastics intake seems to be to avoid microwaving in plastic bowls and to avoid using plastic bottles for soft drinks and water. (Though cans actually use a thin film of plastic inside too.. so, maybe just avoid packaged water?)Beyond your personal intake though there's bigger fish.Car tyres are the #1 source for microplastics entering rivers, and it's not even close (they're thought to be the source of up to 85% of all environmental microplastics).Those particulates don't just vanish, they end up in the soil and the waterways and it ends up inside you, no matter what you do.

sebmellen: There’s a big difference between nanoplastics/chemical leeching (which is what happens with heated food containers) and microplastics of the sort that break off from clothing other plastic materials (which is what the article is talking about). Both are significant issues though.

Carrok: Curious why you say this when the linked article says the best thing you can do is avoid synthetic textiles

dijit: the article lists several things including textiles, plastic packaging, and avoiding tyre particles. I led with containers/bottles because that's where the most concentrated single exposures seem to be (microwaving in plastic, bottled water), but you're right that textiles are up there too, especially for airborne microfibres.The exposure from food packaging is many times more prominent than polyester, which slows down leeching over time.

Carrok: By presenting 0 data to back up your statement?

schiffern: >microwaving in plastic bowls More generally, never let hot food touch plastics. The high temperature is what damages the plastic surface, not anything special about microwaves.

OutOfHere: One action doesn't obviate the need for another.Also, stop using dishwashing pods and laundry pods with the dissolvable plastic layer encasing them. Use powder or liquid detergent instead.

cubefox: The article says this is probably wrong. We breathe in much more.

dijit: I think microplastics has been directly linked to the decrease of male hormones and an sperm quality.source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12989-022-00453-2So, it's having an effect of some kind.

himata4113: If anyone is looking into getting an air filter I recommend winix it was tested by project farm and scored the highest. also I am the owner of two and they've been working great for 4 years now I run them using auto and never worry about them again.replacements are cheap on aliexpress coming at around $30 (per year). You don't need true hepa replacements, you can skip carbon filters if you don't have odor problems or have lots of ventilation.the filters are pitch black every time I replace them so they're definitely doing something.

OutOfHere: Some people use plastic cutting-trays / knives / forks /spoons / cups / jugs, which also are some things to avoid.I would also avoid all nonstick pans and utensils, as they're lined with PFAS which is worse than plastic, and slowly it will break off into the food.

a3w: Half the microplastics in our body is from cars. So move to a car-free city district or remote cabin (and then driving train+bike so not to contribute to the problem?).

oharapj: I wonder if this means that going to the gym is a huge source of exposure then. Enclosed environment with rubber mat flooring and weights constantly banging against it..

_ink_: IIRC there was a study that concluded that boulder gyms have more rubber in the air than exits of motorways.

hansonkd: bigger filter = less noise to move more air

alt227: Fully agree with you, however eating small bits of PFAS from pans seems to be pretty non toxic.Even in the recent Veritasium video about it they said that unless the chemical was heated to above ~300 degress C if will pass through the human digestive system without causing any harm.https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY

OutOfHere: The aluminum relations are easily explained with the observation that healthy kidneys excrete aluminum well, whereas unhealthy kidneys don't and so it accumulates. There might also be similar variations in aluminum deposition in the brain depending on the brain's innate ability to wash out chemicals. In contrast, the excretory mechanisms of plastics seems less trustworthy.

sigmoid10: It doesn't change the fact that there is no actual causal evidence. Perhaps the demented neurons simply suck at flushing out microplastics as well. If you ever find people with more microplastics exposure have more dementia (like they did for asbestos), then you're onto something. But no rigorous study has found this yet. And if they do, you will hear of it immediately for sure, given how much reporting there is for microplastics=bad for you.

sigmoid10: This was in mice that were given up to 1000 mg/L of microplastics in their drinking water. If you have this level of contamination, you probably should stop whatever it is you are doing anyways, disregarding your testicles. But even then, there is no evidence for this in humans. Research shows that most microplastics simply passes through your digestive system unhindered.

alt227: If cars are causing microplastic pollution, Im sure bikes and trains are too.Im seems using rubber/plastic compounds for tyres and brakes is always going to cause this issue on any vehicle.

scotty79: With cars there are higher energy involved, and things like that tend to grow with square or cube of the energy. I wouldn't be surprised if car was causing orders of magnitude more plastic pollution than a bike per person per mile.

alt227: Thats obvious and goes without saying, but then I didnt state any specific metrics, only that they both casue the same thing even in different amounts

KellyCriterion: Wait, WHAT?There are _plastic_ tea bags? Really?Didnt know that we reached that level of degredation already! :-DAnother example comes to my mind: In lot of European conutries, at "cheese corner/bar" in the supermarket, every time a piece of cheese is cut, they are removing the foil, cutting the cheese, and then re-packing it in new foil after that - and this for every chees bar in every supermarket: How much kilometers does just one branch waste per year?

scotty79: I wonder when celulose and silica will get their microplastics moment and it turns out we were always full of micro garbage.

bertil: Not as long as there are powerful car lobbies and the main source of microplastic will remain car tires.Instead, you have articles like this trying to tell people to look away from that main source of problem, and blame, say, indoors or food preparation, and skip details like how the homes with the most microplastic in them are… close to the highway.

dijit: Yeah, typically we test adverse effects in mice before doing trials on larger animals.That we haven't observed this behaviour in a scientific way in humans doesn't mean it isn't there, it's just that we haven't yet scientifically observed anything. That there is some evidence in favour of it having adverse effects somewhat defeats the idea that it's provably non-harmful.It might be interesting; instead of downplaying the harm, to see if we can observe any patterns that fit with these findings over the course of human history with the introduction of microplastics...and if we were to do that, we'd find some interesting correlation, even if it's not provably causation yet.https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20120325/generatio...We also know that plastics are a source of hormone disrupting chemicals; https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-environmental-toxins-...Bury your head I guess? Just make sure it's not a polyester pillowcase.

sigmoid10: Sorry, I still subscribe to science and not speculation. But I guess I am increasingly alone with that idea on HN. And to be clear if someone points out a rigorous causal link, I'd be onboard immediately. But this purely speculative fear mongering based on random scientific observations targeted at non-scientists is similar to what you see in the homeopathy and energeticism.

dijit: The science disagrees with your hypothesis that "provably, nothing is the matter".

himata4113: You don't really want to use HEPA either, you want to maximize airflow.PC fans with low MERV type filter do great since the smaller the particle (I think this effect kicks in below 5 microns) the better it is at filtering it so if it can pass 10 times more air than a hepa filter it's as effective as one while being able to filter more air faster and keeping the particles airbone.The only downside is that small range of particles where lower merv filters aren't good enough to filter so upwards of 70% of the particles pass through

schiffern: This 100%. MERV 11-14 can be far more effective than HEPA.If you need to filter "one and done" (like pumping air into a hospital operating room), that's where you need HEPA. Most air purifiers mix the cleaned air back into the same room, so MERV is closer to the mathematically ideal sweet spot.It's also good to buy reputable brands of MERV filter which have lots of folds (surface area) like the 3M 1900 MPR. About half of filter brands scored far below the claimed MERV rating:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKAVek1YaSQ

bertil: The amount of damage to tires is proportional to the fourth power of the weight per axel. That means that for the same journey, a bike sheds (3000 kg / 80 kg)ˆ4 so about 20 million times less. Assuming that the rubber is the same—and not that it has proprietary chemistry that may or may not contain carcinogens. Eight orders of magnitude of difference feels relevant.Almost every train I know use metal wheels. We can look at the few that don’t, but something tells me people who raise that argument don’t want to look at alternative wheel composition, but rather hope to seed doubt and, in private, lobby replace one metro with thousands of cars, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea.So, please, don’t come in here with that bullshit.

ajb: That sounds worth knowing; however when I looked MERV up, it seems that it's a rating system, not a type of filter. Could you me more specific abot the kind of filter you mean?

schiffern: Yep, talk about an unnecessary use of plastic.The kicker? It's only on high-end teas, because plastic is more expensive than regular tea bags.

sigmoid10: Then please link to it. I'm still waiting for a causal health issue meta analysis that disagrees with me. Shouldn't be hard, if "the science" as you call it has come to a consensus. But I have only seen wild speculation so far like the one linked here.

dijit: Sure. Here's a few:- Microplastics found in 76% of human semen samples, with PET-exposed men showing reduced sperm motility: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12299061/- Multi-site study across China (113 men), PTFE microplastics linked to sperm dysfunction (published in eBioMedicine/Lancet): https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-39...- Microplastics found in every human testicle sampled, at 3x the concentration of dogs, with PVC correlating to lower sperm count in canines: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36948312/- In-vitro exposure of human semen to polystyrene MPs showed time-dependent decline in motility and increased DNA fragmentation: https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/7/605The mouse study I linked earlier isn't the whole picture; it's one piece. The "no human evidence" line was maybe defensible in 2022. It isn't anymore.Also, re: "1000 mg/L is unrealistic".. the study used two doses, 100 μg/L and 1000 μg/L. Raw surface water in Amsterdam has been measured at ~50 μg/L. The lower experimental dose is well within an order of magnitude of real-world contamination. That's how dose-response science works.Comparing this to homeopathy is… a choice.

alt227: Lovely tone, you sound like a really nice person.I never mentioned train wheels at all. Their brake pads are made from things like carbon, ceramic, and resin compounds. These wear down like any brake pads and so cause the same dust pollution. Remember that some trains in the world are over a mile long and have over 1000 wheels.I dont see anybody claiming that bikes or trains cause anywhere near the same level as cars, but it is important to remember that they still do cause some and so they are not a silver bullet. Solutions still need advancing in order to completely remove these pollutants from human transportation systems.

bertil: > Im sure bikes and trains are too. > … for tyres and brakesYou are welcome to edit your comment to clarify.

schiffern: That helps for pollution that comes from outside (traffic, pollen, wood smoke), but most of the microplastics are generated by moving/wearing synthetic textiles inside the home.Positive pressure systems are great, love 'em, but there's a quantitative mismatch in this case. Above ~1 ACH your HVAC costs will go through the roof (even with heat/humidity recovery), but for effective filtration you need 6-8 ACH to catch the larger dust before your lungs do.

Gigachad: And for pm2.5, at least in Australia, it’s entirely generated from cooking. Outside air is very clean.

NitpickLawyer: I've heard that removing latex gloves when breathing might help...

bertil: Classic case of PR leveraging a real, anecdotic observation on one single result, but completely flipping it to pretend it’s a systematic result, to saw doubt on all scientific findings around microplastic. The same companies behind this last story have done the same thing to slow down regulation to limit the impact of smoking, alcohol, processed foods, oil refinery, global warming, lead pipes…

KellyCriterion: Curious: What is "high end tea"? Or is this just another wording for "premium-markup" which makes a product more expensive?

dijit: 'Bikes cause it too' is technically true in the way that a dripping tap and a burst dam both cause flooding. The effect of this framing (intentional or not) is to suggest we shouldn't prioritise the thing that causes 99.99% of the problem until we've solved the thing that causes 0.01%. That's not a serious position, you're just protecting your comfort.

sigmoid10: You'll excuse me if I only explain the first one, since the others seem redundant (not to say suspiciously redundant if you look at the authors). And none of this is a meta review like I asked, but I'll let it slide this time.First:>no significant association was found between MP exposure and sperm concentration or total sperm countSecond: N=34Third (if second didn't give it away): The one effect they did find sits at p=0.056. That means one in 18 random studies will find that effect just because of probability statistics. And as you have nicely pointed out, there are maaaany studies like this out there. You just don't find all the null results if you go into research with your mindset. But that is exactly what differentiates a scientist looking for truth from a hobbyist trying to argue on the internet.

schiffern: Yes I just mean the more expensive tea on the shelf. On cheaper SKUs they're trying to cut cost so they use normal tea bags.Those plastic sachets were a big trend for a while. I haven't checked lately, but hopefully most brands have switched away.

NitpickLawyer: ... or just a benign joke. Not everything is that serious, you know...

himata4113: HEPA is typically just one type of filter with True HEPA as an offspring, MERV is a range which allows you to filter exactly what you need at the highest airflow. It really depends on what kind of pollution you have at your home.If you just have a lot of dust then you want highest airflow possible (around MERV 9-10) if you want to filter things that cause allergies you need to go as high as MERV 14 since MERV 9-10 effectiveness is super low in that specific range.

_ink_: Is there a brand that makes pullovers / hoodies, that are made 100% from natural materials?

KellyCriterion: Thanks for threwing this ball, so let me ask:Is there any real difference between the more expensive shelf places ("on eye height") than the more cheap one?Id suspect its just intelligent re-labelling/re-packing for different brands?Or is there really a difference in the quality/taste of the expensive ones?In my country, it doesnt matter if i spend 2 bucks or 5 bucks in the supermarket

senectus1: all the high end tea bags I've seen are silk

alt227: No need, it is correct.Bikes have tyre pollution, and trains have brake pollution. Seems like a pretty simple statement to me.Interesting that you have moved from arguing the point into semantics now without addressing anything else. You are welcome to remove your downvotes.People seem to get very upset when others point out that transport like bikes and trains still cause the same pollution as cars. yes it is much less, possibly orders of magnitude so, but they still cause it. Perhaps instead of getting the pitchforks out we could work together to find better wheel and brake solutions for all transpotation methods which dont cause so much toxic dust.

dijit: You can't downvote direct replies.

alt227: My original downvoted post wasnt a reply to Bertil, but thanks for chiming in with some random criticism on other peoples threads anyway.

alt227: Have you ever seen the damage a dripping tap can do? I have seen houses completely wrecked by it.Stop protecting your argument by trying to say something small doesnt matter. It all matters, regardless of size.If the argument is that microplastics are harmful to health, surely we should be looking at all sources of them instead of just the biggest?My argument is 'Lets try to make all vehicle tyres and brakes from something that doesnt pollute the earth and harm animal life on it.'Yours seems to be 'Lets ignore the plastic pollution from other transport because cars cause the most, so thats all we need to worry about.'