Microplastic Contamination and Life Cycle Assessment of Bottled Drinking Water

Abstract

Microplastic released from bottled water is found to be an anthropogenic contaminant affecting human health. Microplastic particles can lead to oxidative stress if it enters the human tissue. Most microplastic particles are found to be in size range of 5–10 µm and it can be detected effectively by using Micro-Raman Spectroscopy. One litre of bottled water is found to contain an average of 10,000 microplastic particles. Source for release of microplastic particles in bottled water is Polypropylene and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) which is the major ingredient of bottle cap material. In this paper, a detailed review on the microplastic content of bottled water has been carried out and also an assessment on the life cycle of bottled drinking water is performed. The results of this study concluded that the harmful effects of microplastic particles in bottled drinking water can be reduced by using Polylactic acid (PLA) which has low impacts on carcinogenic and respiratory organics for bottle cap production.