> the tea bags released microplastic and even smaller nanoplastic particles — and not just the hundreds or thousands Tufenkji had been expecting.
this is a misleading title. if one microplastic is a thousand nanoplastics then obviously it's going to be trillions of nanoplastics and billions of microplastics.
> "We were shocked when we saw billions of particles in a single cup of tea," she said.
So if you get this "bubble tea" with tapioca balls in it, are they macro particles?
No, because it depends on how it's breaking down. If you have one cohesive sheet of plastic, it would be wrong to say that you have trillions of nanoparticles of plastic.
The concerns with plastics that break up into many smaller pieces and enter the body and wider ecosystem are different (and potentially worse) than the concerns of the impacts of a single macro piece.
this is a misleading title. if one microplastic is a thousand nanoplastics then obviously it's going to be trillions of nanoplastics and billions of microplastics.
> "We were shocked when we saw billions of particles in a single cup of tea," she said.
So if you get this "bubble tea" with tapioca balls in it, are they macro particles?