Recently, scientists have found tiny pieces of plastic in the ocean, in drinking water, and even in table salt. Now they’ve found it in an even odder place: human poop!
Plastic is a useful material—cheap, lightweight, and strong. But it doesn’t completely biodegrade, or break down, over time. Instead, it splits into tiny pieces. These microplastics remain in the environment for hundreds of years.
To find out if microplastics make their way inside our bodies, researchers at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria recently examined the stool of eight people. All the samples contained microplastics. Now scientists need to determine how the plastic ended up there and what it might mean for our health.