Plastic Body
The scientific tracker for every microplastic discovery inside you — organ by organ, paper by paper.
Microplastics bioaccumulation in the human body — tracking research discoveries, exposure pathways, health effects, and evidence-based reduction strategies
Niche Explored
Microplastics in the human body — tracking scientific discoveries of where plastic particles accumulate (brain, blood, placenta, lungs, liver), what health effects are being documented, and evidence-based methods to reduce personal exposure. The angle is personal health, not ocean cleanup.
Existing Competition
- whatismicroplastics.com — beginner’s guide, affiliate-driven, mostly product reviews. Generic SEO content, no data pipeline
- Substack: “Microplastics” by Ray Philp — small newsletter, occasional posts, not data-driven
- Substack: “The Detox Weekly” — general detox advice, microplastics is one topic among many
- Substack: “LongeviMed” — premium longevity newsletter, covered microplastics 3x. Not focused
- TapWaterData.com — water filter reviews, affiliate model. Narrow scope (water only)
- microplasticalternatives.com — Amazon affiliate product roundups
GAP: Nobody is doing automated, research-paper-driven reporting on microplastics in the human body. No site systematically tracks new discoveries (which organs, what concentrations, what polymers, what health effects). The competition is either product-affiliate sites or small newsletters. There’s no “data dashboard” for microplastics in humans.
Data Sources Found
- PubMed E-utilities API — Free, no key required. Search “microplastics” + “human” returns 4,800+ papers. RSS feeds for new publications:
https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/esearch.fcgi?db=pubmed&term=microplastics+human&retmax=20&sort=date - Europe PMC API — Free, 40M+ papers, full text for open access. Better abstracts than PubMed:
https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/search?query=microplastics%20human&resultType=core&pageSize=25&sort=DATE%20desc - Semantic Scholar API — Free, no key required, 200M+ papers. AI-powered relevance scoring and TLDR summaries. Rate limit: 100 requests/5 min (unauthenticated)
- NOAA NCEI Marine Microplastics Database — 1972-present, global marine samples. Free download CSV:
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/microplastics - California Open Data — Microplastics in Drinking Water — Actual lab test results by water system:
https://data.ca.gov/dataset/microplastics-in-drinking-water - USGS PFAS Tap Water Data — Related chemical contamination data by location
- Open Food Facts API — Free, packaging material data for food products (search by “plastic” packaging). Can cross-reference food contact materials
- ScienceDaily RSS — Filtered for “microplastics”:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/rss/matter_energy/plastics.xml - Moore Institute Microplastics Data Portal — Open source on GitHub, aggregated datasets:
https://github.com/Moore-Institute-4-Plastic-Pollution-Res/Microplastic_Data_Portal - Altmetric API — Track which microplastics papers are getting media/social attention
SEO Analysis
- “microplastics” — 738K searches/month, growing 93% YoY (Glimpse, March 2025)
- “microplastics in brain” — surging after Nature Medicine paper (Nov 2024) and ScienceDaily (Mar 2026)
- “how to avoid microplastics” — high intent, commercial potential
- “microplastics in water” — high volume, filter affiliate opportunity
- “microplastics in blood” — growing, scary, shareable
- “microplastics health effects” — mid-volume, underserved by authoritative content
- Long-tail opportunity: “microplastics in [organ]”, “microplastics in [food type]”, “do [product] filters remove microplastics” — all underserved by data-driven content
Communities
- r/microplastics (small but growing), r/environment (3M+), r/science (30M+)
- Twitter/X: #microplastics, #plasticfree — active science communication community
- Facebook: “Plastic Free” groups (100K+ members)
- Telegram: environmental science channels
- TikTok: “microplastics” content regularly goes viral (millions of views on detection/science videos)
Image/Graphic Feasibility
- Body maps — AI-generated anatomical diagrams showing where microplastics accumulate (brain, lungs, blood, placenta, liver, gut). These are HIGHLY shareable
- Data charts — concentration trends over time, polymer type breakdowns (PET, PP, PE, PS)
- Research timelines — when each organ was first found to contain microplastics
- Exposure pathway infographics — food → gut → blood → organs flowcharts
- Product comparison graphics — filter effectiveness, packaging types
- All of these can be auto-generated with D3.js/Chart.js + AI image generation for anatomical illustrations
Sources
- https://meetglimpse.com/trend/microplastics/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03453-1
- https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/03/260313002637.htm
- https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/microplastics
- https://data.ca.gov/dataset/microplastics-in-drinking-water
- https://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/
- https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/
- https://www.semanticscholar.org/product/api
- https://github.com/Moore-Institute-4-Plastic-Pollution-Res/Microplastic_Data_Portal
- https://openfoodfacts.github.io/openfoodfacts-server/api/