We find ourselves in the forest, where we encounter all the PET bottles left behind by others before us. Through exposure to sunlight, microplastics detach from these plastic packaging materials. We breathe them in the clean air of the forest. We gather microplastics from the environment in our cellulite.

These minuscule pieces of plastic, referred to by specialists as microplastics and their even smaller counterparts, nano-plastics, can enter the body through the skin, penetrating even into cells. Professor Simina Ștefan, from the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, explains.

"When intruding into cells, a microplastic is not recognized by the cell. The cell, not knowing what to do with that microplastic, evacuates it, and it ends up in adipose tissues because it is lipophilic. That is, it adheres especially to fatty compounds and deposits itself in adipose tissues. The so-called cellulite is not actually fat, it's a mixture of toxic compounds with fat. In fact, it is inflammation of adipose tissue with many toxic compounds".

At this moment, microplastics are prohibited in pharmaceutical products, as well as in cosmetic products. By 2035, the European Union will impose a maximum limit of microplastics in drinking water.

We breathe, eat and drink tiny pieces of plastic. And we wonder how they manage to be everywhere in the environment?

We take a bottle of water and remove its cap. When we drink water, we automatically ingest plastic. The same happens when, for example, we use a mixer in a plastic bowl, producing microplastics and introducing them into food. We use plastic containers in the refrigerator. Especially fatty foods will absorb plastic.

"All plastic materials have the capacity to degrade under mechanical action. You have a water bottle, and with a simple rubbing, microplastics detach. We must know that up to 400,000 microplastics can be ingested in a year, whether we ingest them or deposit them in various tissues".

Plastic is dangerous even when exposed to sunlight, regardless of where we find it. A reaction occurs that results in microplastic.

"Exposure of these plastic objects to light, to a variety of climates, from winter at 5 degrees to summer at 30 degrees. By exposure to light and air, these plastic materials degrade into very small pieces".

The European Union has imposed the use of biodegradable packaging to protect the environment. They degrade when they reach the soil. But simultaneously, they produce microplastics.

"This entails the fragmentation of these plastic materials into microplastics in a very short time. This is another very important source of microplastics. Even if oxygen molecules are introduced, which promote biodegradation, those macro-molecules will still fracture into microplastics, which we find in the environment, and we can breathe them in".

So, we breathe, eat and drink plastic without seeing these particles. We currently have no real way to limit exposure.