Every time you sit to eat your meal, be careful as you might swallow an ample amount of tiny pieces of plastic. Yes, a shocking study conducted by the United Kingdom scientists reveals that each family member could gulp 100 tiny plastic particles with every main meal. The researchers made the discovery after putting Petri dishes containing sticky dust traps on the table next to the dinner plates in three houses during meal time. The plastic particles could from car tyres, soft furnishings and synthetic clothes that get into the household dusts and falls into your plate.

Scientists at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University placed dust traps on dining tables in three homes. The team concluded their study that a dinner plate catches up to 14 pieces of plastic which comes up to 114 plastic fibres over the course of a 20-minute meal. They confirmed that on an average a person swallows up to 68,415 potentially dangerous plastic fibres a year simply through sitting down to eat. Experts advise that gulping plastic particles can damage lungs, poison the kidneys and also interfere with hormones. The study further confirms the alarming spread of plastics that was unveiled by the British media company, Daily Mail earlier this month through a Turn the Tide on Plastic campaign. They discovered nearly 139 pieces of plastic in fresh fillet of fish from major supermarkets majorly in Britain.

The senior author of the study and professor of environmental toxicology at the Heriot-Watt University, Dr. Ted Henry was quoted in the Daily Mail saying, “These results may be surprising to some people who may expect the plastic fibres in seafood to be higher than those in household dust. We do not know where these fibres come from, but it is likely to be inside the home and the wider environment.”

The author believed that the plastic particles discovered in the home made meal did not come from the food or even the cooking environment, but the household dust. So, be careful the next time you sit for your meal! They are tiny particles that are not easily visible in our naked eyes rolling on the food.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 31, 2018 01:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).