When travelling overseas, do you buy water in plastic bottles or take your chances with tap water? Imagine you are wandering about on a Thai island or (26)_____ the ruins of Angkor. It’s hot so you grab a bottle of water from a local vendor. It’s the safe thing to do, right? The bottle is (27)_____ , and the label says “pure water”. But maybe what’s inside is not so (28)_____. Would you still be drinking it if you knew that more than 90 percent of all bottled water sold around the world (29)_____ microplastics？
That’s the conclusion of a recently (30)_____ study, which analysed 259 bottles from 11 brands sold in nine countries, (31)_____ an average of 325 plastic particles per litre of water. These microplastics included a (32)_____ commonly known as PET and widely used in the manufacture of clothing and food and (33)_____ containers. The study was conducted at the State University of New York on behalf of Orb Media, a journalism organisation. About a million bottles are bought every minute, not only by thirsty tourists but also by many of the 2.1 billion worldwide who live with unsafe drinking water.
Confronted with this (34)_____ , several bottled-water manufacturers including Nestle and Coca-Cola undertook their own studies using the same methodology. These studies showed that their water did contain microplastics, but far less than the Orb study suggested. Regardless, the World Health Organisation has launched a review into the (35)_____ health risks of drinking water from plastic bottles.
