When you choose to drink a hot beverage, it will be served to you in a paper cup. The situation has been the same for years at popular coffee chains, fast-food restaurants, school canteens and even more.

But, in fact, the scientific world has repeatedly revealed the negative relationship between hot liquids and paper cups. Let’s explain how paper cups can actually threaten our health in the light of scientific research.

Paper cups scatter microplastics!

The research we will refer to in this article will be the research titled “Microplastics and other harmful substances released from disposable paper cups to hot water”, which was published in 2020 and received 44 references and 58 citations to date.

The research, published by Ved Prakash Ranjana, Anuja Josephb and Sudha Goel from Kharagpur Institute of Technology, India, was carried out with cups from 5 different paper cup manufacturers. The result was quite frightening.

Before moving on to the results, let’s look at the materials used in a paper cup:

Almost every paper cup we have today is produced with the same materials. The inner part of the glasses, where the beverage is placed, is covered with ‘polyethylene’, a type of thermoplastic used in many products. In some glasses, ‘copolymer’, a type of polymer, can be used.

This plastic dissolves when it comes into contact with hot water, mixes with the drink and enters our bodies!

In their research, scientists put water with a temperature between 85 and 90 degrees in paper cups. This water was left in the glass for 15 minutes. Afterwards, the results obtained in the examinations made with fluorescence microscopy were as follows:

“Paper cups released microplastic particles into the liquid. A disposable paper cup (100 ml) with a plastic liner can leak approximately 25,000 microns of microplastic.”

So how do microplastics endanger our lives?

The harm of microplastics to human health continues to be one of the interests of the scientific world for many years. Some of the studies carried out to date have included quite serious hypotheses. Some of these hypotheses were as follows:

• Oxidative stress (in other words, ‘corrosion of the body’) resulting from a higher level of free radicals in the body than the level of antioxidants.
• DNA damage and inflammation
• If they are small enough to enter cells or tissues, they may irritate the cell because they are a foreign entity.
• Because they can hold carcinogenic substances, they can cause many various health problems.
• Due to the strong link between human pathogens and plastic waste, various health problems may occur (In fact, it was observed in 2016 that a pathogen called Vibrio cholera, which causes cholera, was attached to microplastics.)

But these and all other possibilities are not yet fully proven. Scientists are considering the possibility that microplastics can harm human life, not directly, but indirectly. On the other hand, the damage of microplastics to microorganisms, which are the most basic building blocks of our lives, has been proven time and again.

Therefore, if we think only within the scope of ‘human impact’, no tangible result has been reached yet. However, in order to take precautions against the consequences that may be detected in the future individually, it is useful to stay away from paper cups. In this context, some giant names have actually started preparations:

Resources:

• Microplastics and other harmful substances released from disposable paper cups into hot water
• The role of oxidative stress during inflammatory processes
• Plastic and Human Health: A Micro Issue?
• Dangerous hitchhikers? Evidence for potentially pathogenic Vibrio spp. ten microplastic particles