 Microplastic pollution of our waterways may not just represent a threat to marine ecosystems, but also to human health. It's evident we're exposed to microplastic pollutants in seafood, which may create a food safety risk. But is there some seafood less contaminated than others? The first published study looked at mollusks, eating an average serving of mollusks. You consume about 90 plastic particles, whereas an average serving of oysters may contain only around 50. As a result, the annual dietary exposure for European shellfish consumers can amount to 11,000 swallowed microplastics per year, though we don't yet know what kind of risk this would carry. Of course, due to their persistent nature, microplastic abundance is only going to get worse. It's inevitable that humans eating seafood will ingest at least some microplastics, particularly when the entire creature is consumed, such as mussels, oysters, and small fish, so what, like sardines? Oh, we didn't know until now. Contamination of microplastics and mesoplastics, which are like little pieces of plastic larger than a millimeter, they looked at 20 brands of canned sardines from 13 countries over four continents, and only found plastic particles in about one in five. They suggested that disparity may have been due to improper gutting in the contaminated samples, but in mammals at least, ingested microplastics can get through the gut wall and circulate throughout the body and even cross the placental barrier. So do microplastics actually make it into the muscles of the fish, like a fish fillet? Let's find out. If you compare the level of microplastics in eviscerated flesh versus the organs, surprisingly, sometimes the flesh actually contained higher microplastic loads than the excised organs, which highlights that evisceration does not necessarily eliminate the risk of microplastic intake by consumers. Microplastics of all colors, shapes, and sizes were detected in all investigative fish muscle samples, so they do actually get into the flesh. So the average intake of microplastics from eating flathead grouper shrimp scat or barracuda may be in the hundreds per 300 grams serving or just in the dozens of plastic particles in a two ounce child serving. Besides the plastic itself, the particles may release absorbed pollutants like PCBs and also release plastics chemical additives like BPA, which collectively may cause hormone disruption, and cancer risk and DNA damage. Hence, although there's no standard, like tolerable dose for microplastics ingestion, as well as information on exact toxicity of different plastic types in the human body, taking weekly servings of these kind of fish may threaten the health of consumers, especially vulnerable groups, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and children. In the U.S., anthropogenic debris, meaning man-made materials, were found in a quarter of individual fish and in two-thirds of all fish species tested, and also about a third of individual shellfish samples, demonstrating that man-made debris has infiltrated the aquatic food chain up to the level of humans via seafood. Because this debris is associated with a cocktail of pollutants, this validates the concern that the debris may be transferring these chemicals to humans via diets containing fish or shellfish, raising important questions regarding the bioaccumulation and magnification of chemicals and consequences for human health. Now, this study also included non-plastic debris, like foams, film, and fibers, but we know now that the ingestion of microplastics appears to be a widespread and pervasive phenomenon across a number of commercially important mollusks, crustaceans, and fish. So, the potential for humans as top predators to consume microplastics as contaminants in seafood is very real, and its implications for health needs to be considered. Despite the existence of considerable uncertainties and unknowns, there may already be a compelling case for urgent actions to identify control and, wherever possible, eliminate key sources of microplastics before they ever make it into our oceans.