Plastic Chip Digestion Research
So the big question is how many plastic chips have I been digesting everyday? I drink 3-5 32 oz. ice filled glasses of water, tea, or coke everyday, so will use 4 glasses as an average.
Each bowl in the above photo represents one of my 4 average drinks per day. To fill the bowls, I filled my normal 32 oz glass with a normal amount of ice and poured it into a clean empty bowl. I only counted the cubes once they were in the bowl and found I use 10-12 cubes for each 32 oz glass. I did a quick inspection of a few of the cubes and took one photo of a cube with a plastic chip which is shown on the main website page. Blue bowls were used so the plastic chips would show up better in the photos.
I watched a football game while the ice was melting. The bowl in the upper left had only 1 small plastic chip. Upper right had 1 large (shown on my finger on the main website page) and 3 small chips. Lower left had 1 large and 5 small chips. Lower right had 1 medium and 2 small. I tried several photos, but couldn't get the small chips to show up in the photos. The totals are 2 large, 1 medium, 11 small plastic chips that I might be digesting per day.
I used the words, might be, as the next part of the research will try and determine how many plastic chips are staying in the glass. I think you will get the picture if you read on!
I took a normal mouth full of water from the 32 oz glass and spit it into a measuring cup to determine how much water I drink with each pour. The photo show just under 1/4 of a cup for each pour. The test water was removed from the measuring cup and 32 oz glass.
I poured all 4 bowls of melted water with plastic chips into the 32 oz glass. I poured about 1/4 cup (about 1 mouth full) from the 32 oz glass into the measuring cup and then poured the measuring cup into one bowl. This was repeated until the 32 oz glass was empty. I noticed 1 large and 1 medium chips were poured out near the bottom and 1 large chip was poured on the last one. With a Kenmore Icemaker, Good To The Last Drop is a bad thing! A small amount of water was poured out of the single bowl at the beginning to reduce the water volume.
This photo clearly shows the 2 large and 1 medium plastic chips that I would have digested in one day. I would have also digested 4 of the smaller chips that didn't show up in the photo. I found 4 of the remaining small chips in the bottom of the glass and 3 were lost.
I believe all 4 small plastic chips were about 1/4 the size of the medium one. To state the findings on the conservative side, I have been digesting 2.5 large plastic chips per day and it could be as many as 912 plastic chips in one year. I feel even one would be too many! Sears Really Stinks!