Microplastic contaminations in a set of beverages sold in France

Microplastics are present in all environments and have even been detected in humans. As a result, more and more worldwide studies are focusing on the contamination of food and beverages by microplastics. To date, none of these studies has examined the contamination levels in beverages sold in France. The current study was set up to address this gap and investigate the level of microplastic contamination in water, soft drinks, beer and wine. This study does not aim to provide an exhaustive overview of all the drinks sold in France. However, efforts were made to study the impact of different containers: plastic, glass, brick, can, cubitainer, on this contamination. Heterogeneous results were obtained with mean contamination levels of 2.9 ± 0.7 MPs/L in waters, 31.4 ± 16 MPs/L in colas, 28.5 ± 13.1 MPs/L in teas, 45.2 ± 21.4 MPs/L in lemonades, 82.9 ± 13.9 MPs/L in beers and 8.2 ± 3.3 MPs/L in wines. It was observed that the most contaminated containers were glass bottles. Caps were suspected to be the main source of contamination, as the majority of particles isolated in beverages were identical to the color of caps and shared the composition of the outer paint. • Different levels of microplastic contamination in various beverages sold in France • Impact of containers on microplastic contamination of beverages • Drinks in glass bottles more contaminated by microplastics • Contamination of glass containers form paint outside of the capsule • Contamination reduction by blowing or rinsing capsules before bottling