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I've been wondering about the plastic retainer I wear in my mouth every night. Could it be releasing microplastics?


Late reply but hopefully you'll see this.

No, not in any normal sense. Plastics are extremely stable. Unless you're grinding your retainer down to <5microns, your retainer isn't a source of microplastics.

The pieces we're talking about either need to start small or need to be exposed to some sort of wear system - sun light, waves grinding plastic bottles together that can break down the polymer chain (actually rather hard to do).

The sunlight one[0] acts on timescales of years/decades, which is a problem for ocean and dumps because all those plastic bottles, we're starting to pay the price environmentally.

But personally, no your retainer is not a source you should be concerned with.

[0] https://www.materialstoday.com/polymers-soft-materials/news/...




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