Even our own bodies now contain plastic waste. It's time to get drastic | Gaby Hinsliff

Banning straws and cotton buds isn't going to cut it. It won't be easy, but our over-reliance on the stuff must endWe are what we eat, and what we eat reveals something about what we are in return. So it shouldn't be all that surprising that humans are now apparently eating plastic, given what we mostly are is thoughtless enough to have littered the planet with the stuff. A small trial at the Medical University of Vienna found tiny shreds of it in the digestive systems of people from eight different countries including the UK. And while that's only a very tentative opening to the conversation - the study involved just eight people and doesn't tell us what if any effect eating plastic was having on their bodies, which means an awful lot more research is needed before we know what any of this really means - it's a conversation that feels overdue. We already knew fish were ingesting plastic. Did we really think it wouldn't reach back up to the top of the food chain, that the consequences of our own actions couldn't return to haunt us? Related: Microplastics found in human stools for the first time Continue reading...