How Much Plastic Did You Swallow Today? You almost certainly didn't notice any of it. But tiny plastic fragments show up in bottled water, takeout containers, and household dust. A new hypothetical study asked a question almost nobody had tested before: once that exposure stops, can the body clean itself up? Microplastics are plastic pieces smaller than 5 millimeters, or roughly the width of a pencil eraser. They're small enough to slip past some of the barriers that normally