[rhplus]

Can someone ELI5 this for me: how would microplastics passing through a digestive system end up in "proteins*"? Are they being stored directly in the fats, within cells, between muscle fibers...?

(* the article seems to be using the term "protein" in the culinary sense, not the molecular sense).

[toomuchtodo]

You know how mercury bioaccumulates up the food chain? It looks like microplastics are similar [1] [2], and they are everywhere in the food web [3]. It's even in the bottled water [4].

[1] https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/08/30/microplastics-could...

[2] https://www.uri.edu/news/2023/08/microplastics-infiltrate-al...

[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917410

(edit: yes, yes, no surprise it's in the bottled water, maybe we shouldn't be selling bottled water if it's full of microplastics? Less bottled water, more water dispensers everywhere)

[louthy]

> It's even in the bottled water

The bottled water that comes in plastic bottles? Not that surprising?

[b112]

Oh no. They're going to take my bagged milk away.

https://www.tvo.org/article/think-bagged-milk-is-weird-think...

When I was a kid, many had their lunch sandwiches in a re-used milk bag too. And you can use the empty bags to store other stuff in the fridge.

Are you going to take a big milk jug, or a cardboard milk container, and use it like a sandwich bag? It's so useful.

It's the perfect way to get milk. PERFECT.

And now.. this.

[everdrive]

It's _especially_ in the bottled water.

[stevenwoo]

There was another posting within the last few months that showed the particular microplastic they studied fit into the same ‘lock’ per lock/key of a biological molecule interaction and prevented the desired molecules from working together. It could be that or a different mechanism. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38322944