New Study Reveals that Sweat may Leach Flame-retardant Chemicals from Microplastics

A new study at the University of Birmingham shows human sweat has been found to leach toxic chemicals out of microplastics and are potentially making them available to be absorbed through skin.

The team looked at microplastics taken from common forms of plastic and tested them with a synthetic sweat in a lab. They analyzed the bio accessibility of #brominated #flameretardants (a class of chemical used to improve the performance of plastics) after microplastics have come into contact with sweat.

Constant Exposure of Skin with Chemicals:
These found that in all examples, the toxic chemicals leached out of the #plasticparticles and as a result, these chemicals may be absorbed through layers of #skin.

The paper, published in #EnvironmentalScience and Technology found that polyethylene microplastics were the worst for bio accessibility of the flame-retardant chemicals which have been previously found in animal studies to cause adverse #healtheffects including #neurotoxicity, #reproductivetoxicity and #cancer.

Dr Ovokeroye Abafe, Marie-Curie Research fellow at the University of Birmingham and first author of the paper said, “The study provides new insights into the risk that arises from our exposure to microplastics in daily life. Our skin is constantly exposed to #microplastics either through our #clothing, #cosmetics, #indoor and #outdoordustparticles, or even from the air.”

“We have shown the first experimental evidence that #toxicadditive chemicals can #leach out from microplastics to our #sweat and become available for absorption through the skin. This raises concern over potential adverse effects of these chemicals, including #endocrinedisruption, neurotoxicity, obesity, and cancer”, Dr Abafe concluded.

Source: University of Birmingham/specialchem