| News / Science News |
No cheer from tea or coffee in paper cups
“In the 15 minutes it takes for (hot) coffee or tea to be consumed the microplastic layer on the cup degrades and releases 25,000 micron-sized particles into the hot beverage,” says Sudha Goel, lead author of the study and an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur.
A new study says that drinking hot beverages from paper cups can lead to health issues. Photo: Olga Oginskaya/Pixabay
“An average person drinking three regular cups of tea or coffee daily, in a paper cup, would end up ingesting 75,000 tiny microplastic particles which are invisible to the naked eye,” she adds.
Globally, some 264 billion paper cups were produced in 2019 for consuming food and beverages such as tea, coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, and soups, according to the Imarc Group, an international market research company.
According to Imarc, consumers use paper cups because of hectic lifestyles and busy schedules, with the demand spurred by the rising trend of takeaway services and ready-to-eat food across the globe. Paper cups also do not require cleaning and can be easily discarded after use.
But the IIT researchers say there is a price to be paid for the convenience. “Microplastics act as carriers for contaminants like ions, toxic heavy metals such as palladium, chromium and cadmium, as well as organic compounds that are hydrophobic (water repelling) and can cross over into the animal kingdom,” says Sudha. “When ingested regularly over time, the health implications could be serious.”
Sudha’s team poured ultra-pure (MilliQ) water at 85—90 degrees Celsius into paper cups and allowed it to sit for 15 minutes before analysing it under a fluorescence microscope for microplastics. The plastic linings were separately examined for changes in physical, chemical and mechanical properties.
The results were startling, says Sudha. “We could confirm the release into the MilliQ water of microplastic particles as well as submicron-sized particles using a scanning electron microscope — a disposable paper cup exposed to hot liquid for 15 min will have approximately 10.2 billion submicron sized particles.”
Further, using ion chromatography, the researchers observed ion transfer into the water from the paper cups, confirming that microplastics could be released into hot beverages.
Most disturbingly, says Sudha, analysis of the plastic films showed the presence of heavy metals in the liners.
“Apart from ingesting microplastics, as outlined in the IIT study, paper cups leave behind thin plastics that contaminate the environment,” says Goutham Y, chief of the Chennai-based Ecolife, a group of environmental entrepreneurs with a mission to replace petroleum-based products with biodegradable and environment- and health-friendly counterparts. Disposable paper cups do not decompose in a landfill and cannot be recycled so that there is a continuous and growing demand for them that can only be met by further deforestation.”
Goutham says Ecolife is researching on non-petroleum, plant-based films that can be used to coat paper cups such as polybutylene succinate that are biodegradable but admits that the environment-friendly cups are twice as costly as the regular ones now in use.
According to Goutham, the wayside tea and coffee stalls in India typically have such small margins on sales that they serve their beverages in the cheapest possible cups, often lined with wax, which can be even more dangerous for consumers than plastic liners. (SciDev.Net)
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