Soda does contain microplastics. A 2020 study in Science of the Total Environment tested soft drinks, energy drinks, and cold tea and found microplastics in every category — and soft drinks carried the highest average count, roughly 40 particles per sample, dominated by fibers and fragments. A 2020 Ecuador study in Sustainability detected microplastics in refreshments alongside milk and beer. The revealing part is the source: the particles match packaging and water-line plastics — PET, polypropylene, polyethylene — not anything from the sugar or flavor. The important caveat: these studies measured presence, not human harm, and for soda the far larger, better-documented health problem is the sugar itself.
A soda seems like the last place to look for plastic. It's flavored, carbonated sugar water — no packaging on the inside, nothing you'd think a microscope would flag. That's exactly why the research is jarring: when scientists ran popular soft drinks under a microscope, they kept finding the same tiny plastic fragments that turn up in tap water and in our own blood. And the surprise isn't unique to soda — the same thing has shown up across drinks nobody suspects, from beer to coffee to milk.
The core finding across the beverage-microplastics literature is that a drink is mostly its water and its container, and soda is made of water and dispensed almost entirely through plastic. This guide walks through exactly what the studies found, how the plastic gets in (the answer isn't the flavoring), whether the amounts are worth worrying about (the honest answer is calmer than the headlines — and points at the sugar first), and the handful of changes that actually cut what you drink.
The bottom line up front: the plastic in soda comes from the water it's made of and the plastic it's bottled and dispensed through — the PET bottle, the can lining, the fountain lines — not the sugar or flavor, so the fixes are about the container and, better still, drinking less soda. Choose glass-bottled soda over plastic or cans, pour it into a glass, and replace as much of it as you can with filtered water — which fixes the sugar and the plastic at once. For the bigger picture, see our ranking of which foods have the most microplastics, why tap water is a top source, and the room-by-room kitchen plastic detox guide.
Do studies find microplastics in soda?
Yes — and the clearest evidence looked at soft drinks head-on. A 2020 study published in Science of the Total Environment, the first of its kind on the topic, analyzed soft drinks, energy drinks, and cold tea sold on the shelf and found microplastics in every category. Soft drinks came out worst: an average of roughly 40 particles per sample, compared with about 14 in energy drinks and 11 in cold tea. The particles were overwhelmingly fibers and fragments — the shapes that come off textiles, tubing, and packaging, not anything native to a sugar-and-flavor syrup.
They weren't alone. A 2020 study in the journal Sustainability examined refreshments — soft drinks — alongside honey, beer, and milk in Ecuador, and detected synthetic fragments and fibers with polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyacrylamide the dominant polymers. Broader beverage surveys, including the landmark tap-water-and-beer work, keep landing in the same place: put a mass-market drink under the microscope and you find plastic, and the fingerprint points at the water and the packaging. Independent teams, different countries, same conclusion.
Where do the microplastics in soda come from?
From the water and the packaging, almost never the flavor. A soda is roughly 90% water, so whatever microplastic is in the source or carbonation water rides straight through into the can — which is why the drink's biggest single ingredient is also its biggest lever. Layered on top of that is every plastic surface the liquid touches on its way to you: the PET bottle it's filled into and the cap that seals it, the thin plastic lining sprayed inside an aluminum can, and, at a restaurant, the bag-in-box syrup bladder, plastic tubing, and nozzle a fountain machine pushes the drink through.
The mechanism here is different from hot coffee or tea. Soda is cold, so heat isn't the driver; instead the particles come from abrasion and wear — a PET bottle flexes, scuffs, and sheds as it's filled, shipped, shaken, and stored, and the older and warmer the bottle, the more it gives up. The sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, and carbonation contribute essentially nothing in the way of plastic; there's no pathway for the plastic to come from the recipe. The table below sorts out where the plastic in a typical soda actually originates.
| Source | What Happens | Contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Source & carbonation water | Soda is ~90% water; particles already in the water carry straight through into the drink | Major — the biggest lever |
| PET bottle & cap | The plastic bottle flexes, scuffs, and sheds as it's filled, shipped, shaken, and stored; the cap liner adds more | Major — abrasion-driven |
| Aluminum-can lining | Cans are lined with a thin plastic film that contacts the acidic drink for its whole shelf life | Moderate to major |
| Fountain syrup lines & nozzles | Bag-in-box plastic bladders, plastic tubing, and nozzles shed particles into the poured drink | Moderate for fountain soda |
| The sugar, flavor & carbonation | No pathway shown; the plastic isn't from the recipe itself | Negligible |
How much microplastic is in a can or bottle of soda?
Enough to detect consistently, not enough to build a diet-wide fear around. The 2020 Science of the Total Environment study measured about 40 microplastic particles per soft-drink sample on average, with fibers and fragments the dominant shapes and polymer fingerprints matching PET, polypropylene, and packaging materials. That was more than the energy drinks or cold teas tested alongside it — a hint that the more heavily a drink is packaged and handled, the more plastic it tends to carry. The Ecuador Sustainability survey reported a lower detection rate in its refreshment samples, which is exactly the kind of spread you'd expect.
The honest headline is that the numbers bounce around a lot. Counts vary by brand, by whether the soda is in glass, PET, or a can, by how long and how warm it sat before you opened it, and by what each lab filtered out as background contamination. What doesn't vary is the direction: across independent teams, the answer to "is there plastic in here" kept coming back the same. That consistency is the point — not any single particle count.
"Soda doesn't get its plastic from the syrup — it gets it from the water it's made with and the bottle, can, and fountain line it travels through. Change the container, and above all drink less of it, and you change what ends up in the glass."
Does glass-bottled soda have fewer microplastics than plastic or cans?
Probably, though no packaging is perfectly clean. Glass is inert and rigid: it doesn't flex, scuff, or shed the way a PET bottle does as it's filled and shipped, and it doesn't carry the thin plastic film that lines an aluminum can. So a soda bottled in glass sidesteps the single biggest packaging source the studies point to. That's the same reason we steer people toward glass across the site, from food storage to water bottles.
But glass isn't a force field. The water the soda is made with, the plant's plastic tubing and fittings, and the plastic liner inside a metal or plastic bottle cap can all still contribute, and once particles are in the liquid, pouring it into a glass doesn't remove them. Treat glass as the better default — a real reduction in the packaging share — not as a guarantee of zero. The only move that reliably shrinks the total is drinking less soda and more filtered water.
Are the microplastics in soda dangerous?
Here's where honesty matters. The beverage studies were designed to measure how much plastic is present and what polymers it is — not to test what those particles do once they're inside a person. On the specific question of harm from the microplastics in soda, the research simply doesn't have an answer yet, and no one should read a health verdict into it that the data can't support.
It's also worth naming the bigger issue in the same breath. For soda, the far better-documented health problem isn't the plastic — it's the sugar, which is tied to weight gain, dental erosion, and metabolic disease in a way microplastics simply are not, yet. A 2019 analysis in Environmental Science & Technology estimated the average person already swallows tens of thousands of microplastic particles a year from food and drink combined, with bottled water a large driver; soda is one contributor within that total. What we do know more broadly is that microplastics are increasingly detected throughout the human body — in blood, organs, and even the brain — so trimming avoidable exposure is sensible even while the harm question stays open.
You don't need a microplastics scare to have a good reason to cut soda — the sugar already is one. The convenient part is that the two problems share a single fix: replacing soda with filtered water removes the sugar and the packaging plastic at the same time. Fix that first, then spend the rest of your effort on the bigger sources in our kitchen plastic detox guide.
How do you reduce the microplastics in your soda?
You can't filter a soda you've already opened — the particles are in the liquid, and straining them out at home isn't possible without wrecking the drink — so the leverage is the container and, more than anything, how much soda you drink. Three moves do most of the work: choose glass-bottled soda over PET bottles and cans when you can, since glass skips the biggest packaging source; pour it into a glass instead of sipping from a warm plastic bottle over hours, which limits contact time; and cut the amount, swapping in sparkling or filtered water, which is the one change that shrinks the plastic and the sugar together.
Then fix the water, because it's the highest-volume thing you put in your body and a top microplastic source in its own right — and it's what a good soda replacement is made of. A pitcher that carries a specific microplastics claim — certified under NSF/ANSI 401, or a rated membrane pore size — cuts particle counts sharply; see our full guide to the best water filter pitchers for microplastics and the broader water filter roundup. Carry that filtered water in glass or steel instead of plastic, and you've replaced the worst-offending drink with the cleanest one. The picks below are the simplest, longest-lasting ways to do all of that.
Fix the sources that actually matter
The plastic in soda is mostly the water it's made of and the bottle it's poured from — and the sugar is the bigger story. Start where it counts: filter your tap water and make it your default drink.
The swaps that cut the most plastic in your drinks
You can't buy "microplastic-free soda," and you can't filter a bottled drink after the fact. So instead of padding this out with products that don't exist, here are the real, currently-sold tools that cut the plastic around what you drink — certified water filters for the water that should be your default drink, plus glass and platinum-silicone vessels to keep the rest of your food and drink off plastic. Prices and availability change, so check current listings.
1. Epic Pure Water Filter Pitcher — Best Overall for Microplastics
Best Overall
Reviewers point to published independent lab data and a filter rated around 150 gallons, far longer than a Brita, as the reasons they trust it, and several describe the slow, deliberate drip as reassuring rather than annoying. The honest downsides: owners report the filtration is genuinely slow and not the pick if you want a glass of water in a hurry, and third-party complaints mention cracked plastic, flip-top lids that stick, and water that spills or leaks from the lid when you pour a full pitcher.
The clearest evidence on this list: Epic posts its independent lab results publicly, so you can see the 99.9% microplastic-removal data instead of trusting a slogan on the box.
Why it's safe: The hollow fiber membrane physically blocks microplastic particles down to ~1 micron, while the carbon stage handles chlorine, lead, and PFAS — all in a BPA-free Tritan body.
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Filtered water is the drink that should replace most of your soda, and it's the input you control most tightly — which makes a good filter the highest-leverage swap on this list. The Epic Pure is the clearest choice: its dual-stage design uses a hollow fiber membrane as the primary microplastic barrier, and Epic publishes the independent lab results to back the 99.9% removal claim — transparency most competitors don't match. Make it your default pour and the sugary bottle stops being the easy grab.
2. Waterdrop Chubby 10-Cup Pitcher — Best Filter Life
Best Filter Life
Owners like the look and the long 200-gallon filter life, and roughly 80 percent of reviews land positive, with the common praise being clean-tasting water at a low cost per gallon. The honest gripes: several owners warn the handle can feel loose or strain under a full pitcher, so they lift with two hands; some report the pour spills if you tip too fast; and the change-filter indicator light draws complaints for not lighting or not staying lit.
A membrane blocks particles by pore size rather than by claim list, and its 200-gallon filter runs about 4 to 5 months — the lowest ongoing cost on the list.
Why it's safe: A hollow fiber membrane is a physical barrier to particles, while the carbon composite handles chlorine, heavy metals, and PFAS — all in a BPA/BPS-free body.
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If a household is trying to drink more water and less soda, filter life matters — you'll be refilling it constantly — and the Waterdrop Chubby leads on it: a hollow fiber membrane on Waterdrop's own published lab data, plus 200 gallons per filter (about 4–5 months for most households). The "filter while you pour" design works just like a familiar counter pitcher, but with a membrane that's actually tested for microplastics.
3. Aquagear Water Filter Pitcher — Best Value
Best Value
Owners choose it for broad contaminant removal and clean taste, and some lab testing found it did not clog. The honest downsides: the most repeated complaint is slow filtration, described by one reviewer as a mixed bag between people waiting minutes and people waiting hours, and it can worsen as the filter ages; and the design draws gripes, with the pour-spout cover popping out and spraying water and a lid that fits poorly and can pop off mid-pour.
Change the filter half as often as most pitchers — 150 gallons per cartridge means fewer replacements, lower annual cost, and less to remember.
Why it's safe: A 5-stage filter with a sub-micron membrane stage captures microplastics, lead, fluoride, and chlorine, in a BPA-free body with USA-made filter media.
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The Aquagear costs more upfront but its 150-gallon filter life means lower annual replacement costs than most competitors, and the pitcher body is guaranteed for life. It uses a 5-stage filter with a sub-micron membrane stage that targets microplastics, heavy metals, and fluoride — a good fit for households that don't want to track filter changes constantly.
4. Lifefactory Glass Bottle 22oz — Best Glass Bottle
Best Glass Bottle
The simplest way to keep filtered water with you all day, so the plastic-free water you made at home doesn't get replaced by a plastic bottle the moment you leave. It’s made from borosilicate glass — the same material used in laboratory glassware — which is thermally stable, chemically inert, and completely free of BPA, BPS, and any polymer contact with your drink. It imparts no taste, so water tastes like water, not plastic. The protective silicone sleeve adds grip and guards against shattering. The cap contains a small polypropylene component — the only plastic in the system, at the exterior closure rather than the drink surface. Dishwasher-safe.
Carry the filtered water you made at home instead of buying a plastic bottle out — no plastic contact, no shedding, and it cleans up in the dishwasher.
Why it's safe: Borosilicate glass is completely inert — it never leaches, never sheds microplastics, and imparts no taste. The only plastic is a small cap component at the exterior closure, not the drink surface.
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The hardest habit to break is reaching for a cold plastic bottle when you're thirsty. Carrying filtered water in a borosilicate glass bottle gives you the same grab-and-go convenience without the PET — no leaching, no shed fibers, no plastic aftertaste — and it’s sturdy enough for daily desk-and-bag use, so the soda bottle stops being the default.
5. Glasslock Oven Safe Container Set (3-Pack) — Best Glass Storage
Best Glass Storage
Longtime owners like that the glass bodies are oven-, microwave-, and freezer-safe and that the snap-lock lids seal tight. The honest downsides run through the lids, not the glass: reviewers report cracked lids, snapped locking tabs, and mold building up in the rubber gaskets if they are not dried well. Some buyers also received sets with a locking piece missing, and several flag slow, hard-to-reach customer service when they needed a replacement part.
Three stackable glass containers in one box — enough to store a week of leftovers and prepped ingredients without a single plastic tub.
Why it's safe: Your food sits on inert tempered glass, not plastic — so warm, acidic, watery foods can’t leach or pick up shed particles. The BPA-free lids seal with a food-grade silicone gasket that only touches the rim.
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Drinks aside, most kitchens leak plastic into food through storage tubs. Pour leftovers and prepped ingredients into glass instead, and reheat with the lids off so warm food never sits against plastic — the exact condition that drives the most particle migration. At roughly ten dollars per container, it's also the cheapest way to retire your plastic food tubs in one purchase.
6. Zip Top Silicone Containers (Dish Set) — Best Silicone Set
Best Silicone Set
Zip Top's design is its own category: 100% platinum-silicone containers that stand upright, stay open while you fill them, then zip shut along the top. There's no plastic frame or zipper insert — it's a single piece of silicone, so there's nothing to harbor chemicals or break down.
The dish set includes small, medium, and large (16, 24, and 32 oz) and goes in the dishwasher, microwave, and freezer. It's the tidiest swap for portioned leftovers and snacks to go with the game.
Owners like that the stand-up silicone dishes open with a light pinch and go from freezer to microwave to dishwasher. The honest downsides: the seal is not airtight, so reviewers warn that if a container tips over the liquids will leak out and the dishes must stay upright in the fridge; pigmented foods like tomato or beets stain the silicone and the marks persist after washing; and strong-smelling foods can leave odors the material holds onto.
Meal-prep and snack storage without a stack of plastic tubs. One-piece silicone dishes stand up, zip shut, and rinse clean — nothing leaching into tomorrow's lunch.
Why it's safe: A single piece of 100% platinum-cured silicone, made in the USA — no plastic, PVC, BPA, or PFAS, and no separate lid to off-gas.
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For snacks, leftovers, and anything you'd reach for a plastic tub or bag to hold, platinum-cured silicone is the upgrade — free of the chemicals that migrate from plastic, and durable enough to last for years. For the full lineup, see our guide to the best silicone food storage bags.
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The honest verdict
Does soda have microplastics? Yes — a 2020 study in Science of the Total Environment found microplastics in soft drinks at a higher average count than in the energy drinks or teas tested beside them (about 40 particles per sample), and a 2020 Sustainability study detected them in refreshments alongside milk and beer. But the crucial detail is the source: the plastic matches the water base and the PET bottles, can linings, and fountain lines the soda travels through, not the sugar or flavor, and counts vary widely by brand and packaging. Those studies measured presence, not human harm. So the accurate takeaway is proportion, not alarm — and for soda, the sugar is the health story the evidence is far more certain about.
The practical response is easy, because the plastic in soda is mostly the plastic you can route around — and the single best move helps twice. Choose glass-bottled soda over PET or cans. Pour it into a glass instead of nursing a warm plastic bottle. And above all, drink less soda and more filtered water, since that swap cuts the packaging plastic and the sugar at the same time, and filtered tap water is the one drink you can genuinely make cleaner. You don't need a plastic scare to justify it — the sugar already does.
Cut the plastic that actually adds up
A daily soda is a small plastic source next to the water you drink all day — and its sugar is the bigger problem. A certified filter and a couple of glass vessels make filtered water the easy default.
Frequently Asked Questions
Soda does contain microplastics. A 2020 study in Science of the Total Environment tested soft drinks, energy drinks and cold tea and found microplastics in all of them, with soft drinks carrying the highest average count — about 40 particles per sample, mostly fibers and fragments. A 2020 Ecuador study in Sustainability likewise detected microplastics in refreshments alongside milk and beer. The plastic does not come from the sugar or flavoring — it comes from the water the soda is made of and the plastic it is bottled and dispensed through.
From the water base and the packaging, not the flavor. Soda is roughly 90 percent water, so whatever microplastic is in the source or carbonation water carries straight through. On top of that, every plastic surface the drink touches sheds particles: the PET bottle and its cap, the plastic lining inside aluminum cans, and the bag-in-box syrup bladders, plastic tubing, and nozzles of a fountain machine. Unlike hot coffee or tea, heat is not the driver here — bottle flexing, abrasion, storage time and agitation are.
There is no single number. The 2020 Science of the Total Environment study measured an average of about 40 microplastic particles per soft-drink sample, more than the energy drinks (around 14) or cold teas (around 11) it tested alongside. Counts vary by brand, by packaging, and by how long and how warm the container has been stored. Fibers and fragments dominate, and their polymer fingerprints match PET, polypropylene and packaging plastics rather than anything from the drink's ingredients.
Probably, though glass is not perfectly clean either. Glass does not shed the way a flexing PET bottle or a plastic-lined aluminum can does, so a soda bottled in glass avoids the biggest packaging source. But the water it is made with, the plant's plastic tubing, and the cap liner can still contribute, and pouring into a glass does not remove particles already in the liquid. Glass is the better default, not a guarantee.
No — once soda is bottled, the particles are in the liquid and there is nothing you can do at home to strain them out without ruining the drink. The leverage is upstream: choose glass-bottled soda over plastic or cans, pour it into a glass rather than drinking straight from the bottle over hours, and — the bigger move — cut how much soda you drink and replace it with filtered water, which fixes the sugar problem and the plastic one at the same time.
The health risk from the microplastics specifically is not established; these studies measured how much plastic is present, not what it does inside a person. For soda, the far better-documented health issue is the sugar, so cutting soda helps on both fronts at once. Microplastics are increasingly detected throughout the human body, so trimming avoidable exposure is sensible — but soda is one source among many, and plain filtered water is the upgrade that removes both problems.
Sources
- Shruti VC, Pérez-Guevara F, Elizalde-Martínez I, Kutralam-Muniasamy G. "First study of its kind on the microplastic contamination of soft drinks, cold tea and energy drinks — Future research and environmental considerations." Science of the Total Environment, 2020;726:138580. (Microplastics detected in all beverage categories tested; soft drinks carried the highest average count, ~40 particles per sample, dominated by fibers and fragments.)
- Diaz-Basantes MF, Conesa JA, Fullana A. "Microplastics in Honey, Beer, Milk and Refreshments in Ecuador as Emerging Contaminants." Sustainability, 2020;12(14):5514. (Synthetic fragments and fibers detected in refreshments and other beverages; polyethylene, polypropylene and polyacrylamide the dominant polymers.)
- Kosuth M, Mason SA, Wattenberg EV. "Anthropogenic contamination of tap water, beer, and sea salt." PLOS ONE, 2018;13(4):e0194970. (Widespread microplastic contamination across everyday beverages and tap water; fibers the dominant particle type.)
- Cox KD, Covernton GA, Davies HL, et al. "Human Consumption of Microplastics." Environmental Science & Technology, 2019;53(12):7068–7074. (Estimated tens of thousands of microplastic particles consumed per person per year from food and drink combined.)