Still, sparkling, or nanoplastics? New research from Columbia and Rutgers unis in the US has found that bottled water contains an average of 240,000 pieces of nanoplastics for every litre. A nanoplastic is a particle that’s less than a micron in size, and for those without an advanced science degree, a micron is a millionth of a metre. For reference, human hair is roughly 70 microns in diameter… So these plastics are teeny-tiny, which leads to their next question – whether the bottled microplastics are harmful. The fear is that the nanoplastics are small enough to get into individual cells. Speaking up for bottled water was the International Bottled Water Association (who knew?), which said there was “no scientific consensus on the potential health impacts of nano and microplastic particles”. At any rate, reusable rather than single-use bottles are recommended by people who know about this stuff…