One single person is ingesting a credit card worth of plastic a week new study finds.

A study commissioned last week by Australia’s university of Newcastle states that the average person is consuming 5 grams of micro plastic particles in a week. This is the equivalent to one standard credit card.

In one month, the average person can consume 21 grams of tiny plastic particles. To put this into perspective that is 5.25 teaspoons of plastic consumed by the average person per month.

The study was based on combined data from over 52 studies related to the ingestion of micro plastics by humans.

Research was conducted in a bid to further understand the impact of plastic pollution on humans.

Sources of micro plastics

They found that the biggest source of plastic ingestion came from bottled and tap water.

The study also found that European water was less polluted than water from the US. Even with lower levels of micro plastic in the water in Europe the levels are still unreasonably high for human ingestion.

Seafood, beer and salt have higher levels of micro plastics compared to other food sources.

Food we consume that has been wrapped or stored in plastic packaging, leaves trace amounts of micro plastics on the food.

The report later goes onto state that ingestion of micro plastics is just one aspect of a much wider plastic crisis.

To read more of our articles check out our article on climate change. Whats happening to the planet and how long do we have.

To read more on the methodology of how the research was conducted click here.