Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic – less than five millimetres long on one side or about the size of a pencil eraser. That means some of them are visible to the naked eye, but others are so minuscule that you can’t even see them – smaller than the width of your hair or even a red blood cell.
We are exposed to these plastics in countless ways, whether it is the worn car tyres that release them into the air or the plastic-lined cans that get them into our food. Scientists have found microplastics in our livers, blood, brains and even placentas.
