Fact or Fiction: Lab gloves may be skewing microplastics data?

Michael Rozzen
Posted

(KGTV) — A story that caught our eye claims scientists may be overestimating the amount of microplastics in the environment because they're inadvertently measuring their own lab gloves.

It's true.

Researchers at the University of Michigan found that when scientists touch lab equipment, their nitrile and latex gloves leave particles behind that look like plastic under a microscope.

That may be creating thousands of false positives on testing surfaces.

The scientists stress that microplastics are still a real problem.

But they recommend switching to cleanroom gloves for future testing.