New study exposes common lab item contaminating research equipment: 'We finally traced it down'

A new study published by the Royal Society of Chemistry is raising eyebrows after researchers discovered that a common lab item could be skewing microplastics research.

What's happening?

Researchers at the University of Michigan found that nitrile and latex gloves can shed tiny particles called stearates, which closely resemble microplastics during testing.

Scientists rely on highly sensitive tools to detect microscopic plastic particles in air, water, and soil. Ironically, the very gloves intended to maintain sterile conditions were instead serving as a source of contamination.

At one point, researchers recorded microplastic levels thousands of times higher than expected.

"It led to a wild goose chase of trying to figure out where this contamination could possibly have come from, because we just knew this number was far too high to be correct," said researcher Madeline Clough, according to Futurity. "Throughout the process of figuring it out — was it a plastic squirt bottle, was it particles in the atmosphere of the lab where I was preparing the substrates — we finally traced it down to gloves."

In controlled tests, the gloves produced around 2,000 false positives per square millimeter — a significant margin of error for a field that depends on precision.

Why is microplastics research important?

Microplastics, which are tiny fragments of plastic that break down from larger items, are now found almost everywhere, from oceans to drinking water, and even inside the human body.

If scientists cannot accurately measure their presence, it becomes exceedingly difficult to understand the risks or develop effective solutions.

Still, experts stress that this finding doesn't lessen the scale of the problem.

"We may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none," said senior author Anne McNeil. "There's still a lot out there, and that's the problem."

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From a public health perspective, researchers are still working to understand how these particles affect the body. Early research suggests links to serious health concerns, including lung disorders.

What's being done about microplastics contamination?

The good news is that researchers have already identified ways to minimize this type of laboratory contamination.

The study suggests switching to cleanroom gloves, which are designed to release fewer particles, thereby allowing their use in "ultrapure" applications.

Additionally, the team devised methods to distinguish between true microplastics and glove-related contaminants.

"For microplastics researchers who have these impacted datasets, there's still hope to recover them and find a true quantity of microplastics," said Clough.

For consumers, reducing reliance on single-use plastics and properly recycling or reusing materials can help limit the amount that eventually breaks down into microplastics.

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