https://medium.com/p/2587fc2d6932 In a recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli in Italy, a surprising discovery was made: microplastics were found within arterial plaques. These tiny plastic particles, measuring less than 5 millimeters in length, were present in approximately 60% of the plaques removed from patients with atherosclerosis
FIVE FUCKING MILLIMETERS???? That is not small
Not great
That's just the definition of any micro plastic, less than 5mm, doesn't mean they found any that large here (unless I missed them being more specific in the article somewhere?)
It seems weird to specify half a dang centimeter, I assumed "microplastics" would be invisible to the naked eye, right?
A micron is 1/1000th of a mm, so while sort of visible, they can aggregate and form bigger particles. Usually they define a microplastic particle as being from 1–1000 μm (0.001 mm to 1 mm) some argue it should be 1-5000 μm, but to me anything beyond 1 mm isn't microplastic, just plain old plastic chunks.
That sounds a lot more normal, much more like what I'd expect.