A Credit Card's Worth

“To be honest I don’t think about it often but I know it’s a thing and I know we’re all kinda screwed.”

That's what our friend Simon texted us when we asked him about microplastics. When we launched a few months later, he became one of our first members.

Simon's message captures something most people carry in the background: a quiet, persistent awareness that there's probably dangerous stuff in the food they eat, the drinks they consume, and the products they bring home. But it feels too big, too complicated, or life simply doesn't leave room for it right now. That low-level tension, of knowing something is wrong but deferring action, quietly builds up over time.

The hard truth is that we live in an era where thousands of synthetic chemicals are present in our food, water, and homes: microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors. Their long-term cumulative effects are still largely unknown. Knowing which products are actually safer is something no individual can figure out alone, and the institutions and government agencies that are supposed to help aren't moving fast enough.

What we do know is that this isn't an all-or-nothing problem. You don't have to overhaul your life or be paranoid about every meal. The goal is meaningful reduction: smarter choices about what you bring into your home, informed by real science. That's something you can actually do.

When it comes to modern contaminants, you can suspect the danger and stay passively anxious. Or you can know. Know which brands to trust. Know what to avoid. Know exactly what is okay. That's what Unplastic Labs is for. We believe that if we do the most advanced and deliberate contamination science in the world, and our members use those findings to make better decisions about what they bring into their home, we will all be healthier and safer.

The moment science depends on steady external funding is the moment it must begin satisfying the priorities of whoever pays for it.

In so many words, a conflict of interest. This mixing of outside financial interests and science is unfortunately prevalent in many food safety institutions and government agencies. There is a famous Latin expression that asks, Who watches the watchmen? When it comes to our health, I find myself asking something else: What if the watchmen aren't watching at all?

Today, if you get curious about the water that comes out of your tap, or the food on the shelves where you shop, or the air in the city you live in, pretty quickly your research leaves you concerned. But let's assume the truth lies somewhere in the middle: somewhere between everything is fine, there isn't anything bad in our food and total health catastrophe.

That middle ground still leaves us in a pretty bad spot. Even if we reject extremes, one reality remains uncontested: over the past century, industrial chemistry has introduced a vast array of synthetic compounds into widespread use. Many of them are now routinely present throughout food production, packaging, and water systems, from pesticides sprayed on crops and animal feed (some necessary for yield and safety, others more questionable), to chemicals in processing and storage.

Among the most pervasive and concerning are microplastics, which enter our food through packaging, source ingredients, and environmental contamination; PFAS, the forever chemicals found in coatings and water supplies; bisphenols like BPA in plastics and can linings; phthalates that leach into food from plastic packaging; and heavy metals from soil, pipes, and industrial residues.

The science investigating the health effects of these compounds is still shockingly early. But if you look at the studies that are out (we have collected some of them in our Science Corner), it's not looking good my friends.

Let's double tap on plastic, the contaminant our team follows most closely.

Plastic was invented in 1907. It led to genuine breakthroughs in medicine, transportation, manufacturing, you name it. But here is the not-so-fun fact: plastic does not biodegrade. Ever. Microbes cannot break it down into natural compounds, so once it is created, it sticks around. We have produced roughly 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic since the 1950s. Unless burned, most of it is still here in one form or another, slowly breaking apart into smaller and smaller pieces.

Those pieces are small enough to migrate from packaging into your food, leach from bottles into your water, and shed from containers into what you eat and drink every day. These fragments are what we call microplastics and nanoplastics. Microplastics range from 1 micrometer to 5 millimeters, roughly the scale of a speck of dust up to a sesame seed. Nanoplastics are smaller still, under 1 micrometer. At that scale they approach the size of a virus, small enough to potentially slip through cell membranes and interact directly with your biology. That is what keeps many scientists up at night.

"We ingest a credit card's worth of plastic every week."

As sensational as it sounds, it is mathematically accurate based on current research. And those particles do not just pass through — they accumulate. Microplastics have now been detected in virtually every human organ studied: blood, lungs, liver, kidneys, placenta, testes, and brain tissue. Recent autopsy studies have found microplastic particles making up as much as 0.5% of brain tissue in some individuals, with early data suggesting higher concentrations in people with dementia or Alzheimer's. These are correlations, not yet proven causation, but they raise serious questions that demand more research.

Emerging evidence suggests microplastics are not passive. They act as carriers, tiny Trojan horses, binding to heavy metals, PFAS, endocrine disruptors, and pesticides, and transporting them deeper into tissues. This can trigger chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and disruptions to immune and hormonal systems. Emerging studies are beginning to link these processes to increased risks of cancer, fertility issues, and metabolic disorders.

The world is not an inherently evil place. Plastic came from good intentions: convenience, durability, and progress. I like my tennis racquet. I like my running shoes. I like certain parts of my car not being made of wood.

But when those same polymers start showing up in our bloodstream, in our organs, and in newborns, maybe it is time to ask a few more questions.

Science once thrived in the hands of individuals: curious minds driven by wonder. Why can't people become patrons of science again? Not commissioning art or cathedrals, but commissioning safety.

Unplastic Labs is our response to this growing problem.

We are a member-funded science lab, potentially the first of its kind in the world. Our members vote on what gets studied, and we test the products they request for microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, and more. Through the collective power of membership, we crowdfund health science at a scale that would be financially impossible for individuals alone. Our goal is to build, through our own testing, the world's largest and most detailed record of modern contaminants in consumer products. Our Library of Alexandria, if you will.

Over time, we want Unplastic to become the trusted independent resource for everything consumers put into or onto their bodies. That means going beyond lab results: corporate histories and accountability tracking, evaluations of food systems and sourcing practices, and rigorous independent science on the health questions that matter most — sleep, longevity, nutrition, and beyond.

Every new member means more products we can test, more questions we can answer, and more safety in our daily lives. If our mission feels right to you, share it. Pass it along to anyone in your life who wants to protect their health. Every person who joins makes the next answer possible. And the answers are already overdue.