Drinking tea in paper cups not safe, finds IIT-Kgp study

Kolkata: Is the paper cup you sip your chai from safe? No, says a study conducted by a group of researchers at IIT-Kharagpur. The study — carried out recently by civil engineering teacher Sudha Goel and environmental engineering and management research scholars Ved Prakash Ranjan and Anuja Joseph — confirms contamination of any hot beverage served in disposable paper cups owing to disintegration of microplastic and other hazardous materials that line these cups.
Paper cups are usually lined by a thin layer of “hydrophobic film”, which is made of mostly plastic (polyethylene) and sometimes co-polymers to keep the liquid from seeping out. This microplastic layer can disintegrate within 15 minutes as a reaction to just hot water, the researchers say. Microplastic may carry unhealthy ions and toxic heavy metals like palladium, chromium and cadmium.
“According to our study, 25,000 micron-sized (10µm to 1,000µm) microplastic particles are released into 100ml of hot liquid (85°C-90°C) for 15 minutes. Thus, an average person drinking three regular cups of tea or coffee daily ingests 75,000 tiny microplastic particles that are invisible to the naked eye,” Goel said.
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