Paper Cups May Be Putting Your Health in Danger!

When you choose to drink a hot beverage, this beverage will a paper cup inside will be presented. 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. Come on, your paper cups are actually how it can threaten our health Let’s explain in the light of scientific research.

Paper cups scatter microplastics!

The research we will refer to in this article, published in 2020 and 44 references and 58 cited There will be research titled “Microplastics and other harmful substances released into hot water from disposable paper cups”.

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 also 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 where the beverage is placed in the glasses is a type of thermoplastic used in many products.polyethylene‘ is covered. In some glasses, a type of polymer ‘copolymer‘ 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 applied the temperature to paper cups. between 85 and 90 degrees put water. This water is in the glass for 15 minutes kept on hold. 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 is approx. 25,000 micron microplastic It can leak.”

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 work done so far serious hypotheses. gave place. 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 believe that microplastics are not directly indirectly as well They dwell on the possibility that it can harm human life. 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 consider it only within the scope of ‘human impact’, no tangible result has been reached yet. But in order to take action now against the consequences that may be detected in the future individually, It is better to stay away from paper cups. In this context, some giant names have actually started preparations:

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