Wissenschaftler haben gezeigt, wie Kunststoffe im Boden in die Lebensmittel reisen können, die wir essen. Die Forscher verwendeten einen Radiolabellansatz zum ersten Mal, dass sich Polystyrol -Nanoplastik ansammeln und in die essbaren Gewebe von Radieschen bewegen.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935125019395

From the linked article:

How plastic could be lurking inside the veggies on our plates

**Scientists have shown how plastics in soil can travel into the food we eat**

In the shadowy underworld of soil, tiny plastic particles are lurking like molecular saboteurs. Researchers have long suspected they’re sneaking into our crops, but the trail often goes cold fast. Why? Because tracking these microscopic misfits through plant tissues is akin to chasing ghosts with a magnifying glass.

So are nanoplastics silently infiltrating our food chain, or just stirring up trouble at the roots?

What we do know is that crops exposed to nanoplastics show signs of stress, including stunted growth, physiological hiccups, and a general botanical malaise. But whether this damage comes from plastics building up inside plant tissues or from root-level chaos like reactive oxygen species is still up for debate. And with experimental designs often vague about exposure zones, the story remains incomplete.

To solve the mystery of whether veggies are quietly hoarding plastic, researchers at the University of Plymouth ran a novel experiment. Their goal? To determine if nanoplastics can enter crops through their roots and contaminate the edible parts.

**Researchers used a radiolabelling approach to demonstrate, for the first time, that polystyrene nanoplastics accumulate and move into the edible tissues of radishes** (Raphanus sativus).