Plastics are everywhere. Plastics have been instrumental in medical sanitation (through single-use wrapping) and have played a major role in our economy and lifestyles through the use of convenience items, for better or worse. Plastics and modern industrialization appear to have grown in lock-step.
What are the detriments of plastic’s ubiquity? The effects are subtle yet powerful. A viral video (since removed) showed boxes of processed food -- e.g. crackers, cookies, cereal, etc. -- going into an industrial grinder, still in the packaging. The workers claimed this would go to animal feed, cardboard, plastic, and all. While shocking, this type of recycling is completely legal and commonplace in the industrialized world. This immediately triggered in my mind studies I’d come across on microplastic contamination of meat, and I decided to do a little digging.
Microplastics: What are they?
Microplastics are defined as small pieces of plastic less than 5 mm in size, and they range in size from microscopic to the length of a grain of rice.
In the natural world, microplastics are commonly found in water sources -- (oceans, rivers, rainwater), soil, air (wind is a major microplastic transporter), and wild animals. Due to wind and water currents, “plastics now spiral around the globe” and there are few places on Earth untouched by microplastics. In the US alone, 94.4% of tap water sources are confirmed to contain microplastics. Because microplastics are discoverable nearly everywhere, they’ve become part of our bodies, too. A recent study found that 100% of human stool samples collected contained microplastics.
The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) No Plastic in Nature combined over 50 studies and found microplastics are ubiquitous enough that “an average person could be ingesting approximately 5 grams of plastic every week”, or roughly the equivalent of a credit card. The average amounts ingested varied based on consumption habits. The grocery items that were the biggest contributors to microplastic consumption were drinking water (tap and bottled), shellfish, beer, and salt.
Microplastic Effect on Meat
A British farmer documented the microplastics clearly visible in the animal feed he purchased.
What does this have to do with organic, grass-fed beef? Conventional meat (beef, pork, and poultry) in the US is commonly fed grain-based animal feed. Often, part of this animal feed is “recycled food waste”. From the beginning of agriculture, we’ve been feeding livestock our leftovers. However, today’s recycled food waste involves sending processed foods still in the packaging -- cardboard, plastic, adhesives and all -- to an industrial grinder where the powder is then used as an ingredient in animal feed and pet food.
The ground up recycled food waste is also used as an ingredient in many fertilizers, meaning these microplastics get sprayed all over crops and leach into groundwater. This has led to some controversy in the Organic farming community concerning if these fertilizers should be considered USDA certified Organic. Environmentalists are touting the environmentally-friendly and sustainable nature of using food meant for waste as fertilizer, but who can say the long term impact of microplastics in the soil will be good for the environment?
The trays used to package grocery store meat add microplastics to your meal.
Meat packaging is an additional contamination vector for microplastics. The food trays used to package supermarket meat are usually made of extruded polystyrene (XPS), and small quantities of this material end up trapped between the meat and the plastic wrapping. These particles are difficult to remove by rinsing, and generally end up in the meat when cooked.
Impact on Human and Animal Health
We know microplastics are everywhere now, but is this truly a problem for us or our livestock? Is this just the price we pay for living in an industrialized, modern world?
According to Dr. Heather Leslie, a leading expert in microplastics research, microplastics can pierce the bowel and enter the bloodstream when consumed orally. From the bloodstream, these plastics are transported to and deposited in the tissues and organs of the animal. This has been seen with pigs, dogs, rats, and chickens but hasn’t been tested in humans.
Microplastics end up in the muscle tissue of animals, the part that’s usually consumed by us, but this hasn’t been well studied or tested across different types of meats, environments and agricultural practices. The current available science is limited because microplastics have only been studied in earnest the last 4 years.
It’s not much of a logical stretch to assume that, similarly to pigs, dogs, rats, and chickens, as humans are ingesting microplastics, microplastics are piercing our bowels, entering our bloodstreams, and being deposited in our tissues and organs. The long term consequences are not known, and we should take steps to reduce our exposure.
Because the majority of plastics are made with flame retardants, phthalates, pigments, and Bisphenol-A (BPA), most microplastics contain these additives. The harmful health effects of these additives are well known to be endocrine-disrupting and carcinogenic.
Saint John’s cows with their lush winter coats, grazing on grass and hay.
What can be done?
Replace bottled water with filtered tap water. This step alone reduces a person’s exposure to microplastics 22-fold!
Support community and legal initiatives to reduce the microplastic permeation of our planet.
Buy meat from sources you can trust, and ask questions about what you’re buying. Farmers may not know of the potential microplastics in animal feed. Our USDA Organic, 100% grass-fed, and grass-finished beef is not fed manufactured animal feed. Buying meat without microplastics is one way to vote with your dollar.
Buy food in glass or packaging alternative to plastic.
Microplastics are everywhere; there’s simply no avoiding it. However, we can take steps to reduce our exposure and protect our health.