Does Soda Have Microplastics? What the Studies Actually Found

A can or bottle of soda looks like the last place you'd worry about plastic. But step back and it's almost purpose-built to carry it: soda is roughly 90% carbonated water — and researchers have already found microplastics throughout the water supply — sealed inside a plastic bottle, kept slightly acidic by carbonation, then shaken, shipped, and repeatedly opened before you drink it. Every one of those steps is a chance for tiny plastic fragments to end up in the glass.

Scientists have started measuring exactly that. The picture that's emerged is consistent: microplastics show up in essentially every soft drink tested, and the plastic packaging — especially the cap — is a major driver of how many. This guide walks through what the studies found, whether the amounts are worth worrying about (the honest answer is calmer than the headlines), and the simple swaps that cut the plastic you drink.

Does soda have microplastics?

Yes. The first study to look specifically at soft drinks — a 2020 paper led by V.C. Shruti and colleagues — detected microplastics in every soft-drink sample it tested, at roughly 2 to 39 particles per liter. Follow-up research on sodas, energy drinks, and other beverages has reached the same basic conclusion: some plastic particles are present in essentially all of them.

The particles the researchers found were mostly tiny fibers and fragments, with polymers like polyamide, polyester, and polyethylene turning up repeatedly — the same plastics used in packaging, textiles, and bottle caps. The counts are modest compared with bottled water, which can carry hundreds of thousands of nanoplastic particles per liter, but "modest" is not "zero," and the source of the plastic turns out to be the interesting part.

How do microplastics get into soda?

Three ways, and the biggest one is the packaging. Soda is mostly carbonated water, so any particles in the source water carry straight through. Bottling and processing equipment adds more. But the plastic bottle and its cap are the dominant contributor — they shed fragments into the acidic, fizzy liquid during filling, transport, and especially every time the bottle is opened.

That last point matters because a soda bottle is not a sealed, one-time container the way a can is. It's made of PET plastic with a threaded plastic cap you screw on and off, and the drink inside is under pressure and mildly acidic — conditions that speed up how fast plastic sheds. It's the same reason reusing plastic water bottles is discouraged: mechanical wear and acidity work plastic loose over time.

Does opening a plastic soda bottle release more microplastics?

Strikingly, yes. A 2024 investigation by the French environmental group Agir pour l'Environnement measured the same bottles at first opening and again after repeated use. Freshly opened, a soda held only about 4 microplastic particles. After being opened and closed 10 to 20 times, the count jumped to roughly 46 particles per liter in a cola and about 62 per liter in a lemon-lime soda.

The mechanism is simple and a little unsettling: twisting the threaded cap on and off grinds plastic off the threads and drops it into the drink, and the pressure changes flex the bottle walls. In other words, a big-format soda bottle you nurse over a day or two can end up carrying an order of magnitude more plastic than one opened once and finished. The same French tests identified six polymer types — polyethylene, PET, and PVC most often, with smaller amounts of polyamide, polypropylene, and polyurethane.

Is soda in glass bottles or aluminum cans safer?

Glass is the cleanest option, but "canned" and "glass" both come with an asterisk. In a glass bottle the drink touches inert glass rather than plastic, so it avoids the bottle-and-cap shedding almost entirely — only the closure remains a minor source. Aluminum cans feel plastic-free, but they aren't: the inside is coated with a thin plastic epoxy liner to stop the acidic soda from corroding the metal, and that liner can contain BPA or its chemical cousins.

So none of the mainstream formats is truly plastic-free, and the can's liner brings its own BPA and BPS question into the picture. If your goal is to avoid packaging plastic altogether, the surest route isn't hunting for the perfect container — it's making fizzy drinks at home from filtered water and serving them in glass.

Soda Format	Plastic Contact	Notes
Plastic (PET) bottle	High	Bottle + cap shed particles; more with each open-and-close
Aluminum can	Moderate	Inner epoxy liner can contain BPA/BPS; not plastic-free
Glass bottle	Low	Drink touches inert glass; only the cap is a minor source
Homemade + filtered water	Lowest	No packaging; carbonate filtered water, serve in glass or steel

Are the microplastics in soda dangerous?

Here's where honesty matters. The particle counts are real, but the studies measured how much plastic is present — not what those particles do once you swallow them. On the specific question of harm from the microplastics in soda, the science simply doesn't have an answer yet, and no one should read a health verdict into numbers that weren't designed to give one.

What we do know is broader: microplastics are increasingly detected throughout the human body, and researchers are still working out what that means. Against that backdrop, soda is a modest plastic source — and it already has a far better-established health problem in its sugar load. The reasonable stance is proportion: you don't need to fear a can of soda, but between the sugar and the plastic, it's a good drink to make occasional rather than daily.

How do you cut the microplastics you drink?

Put soda in perspective and the priorities get obvious. The largest controllable source of the microplastics in your diet isn't soda — it's the water you drink every day, and the single-use plastic bottles many people drink it from. Fix that and you remove far more plastic than you ever could by fussing over a soft drink.

Start with water, because it's the highest-volume thing you put in your body. A pitcher filter that carries a specific microplastics claim — ideally NSF/ANSI P473 certification — cuts particle counts sharply; see our full guide to the best water filter pitchers for microplastics and the broader water filter roundup. Then change what you drink from: swap single-use plastic bottles for one of the safest reusable glass or stainless-steel bottles, and if you love fizz, carbonate that filtered water at home and serve it in glass. The picks below are the simplest, longest-lasting ways to do both. (The same logic applies to your other drinks — see what we found on microplastics in coffee and in beer and wine.)

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The swaps that cut the most plastic you drink

There's no such thing as a "microplastic-free soda," and the honest fix is to drink less of it and get your everyday hydration out of plastic. So instead of padding this out with products that don't exist, here are the real, currently-sold tools that remove far more plastic from what you drink than any soda adds — certified water filters and glass or stainless-steel bottles you can carbonate and refill for years. Prices and availability change, so check current listings.

1. Epic Pure Water Filter Pitcher — Best Overall for Microplastics

Because tap water is the single highest-volume thing most people put in their bodies, filtering it removes more microplastics than any other single swap — and it gives you a clean base for homemade sparkling water. 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.

2. Waterdrop Chubby 10-Cup Pitcher — Best Certification (NSF P473)

If you want the one credential that proves a filter is rated for microplastics, the Waterdrop Chubby has it: formal NSF/ANSI P473 certification, plus the longest filter life on the market at 200 gallons (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. ZeroWater 10-Cup Pitcher with TDS Meter — Best for Hard Water

ZeroWater’s 5-stage system is the most comprehensive multi-layer design in the pitcher category, combining a coarse screen, activated carbon, oxidation reduction, ion exchange, and an ultra-fine final screen. The included TDS meter makes it easy to know exactly when to replace the filter — a real practical advantage. Note: in hard-water areas, replace filters on the TDS reading, not a fixed schedule.

4. JOCO Glass Flask 20oz — Best Glass To-Go

If most of your plastic exposure comes from grabbing bottled drinks, a glass flask is the single highest-impact swap. Borosilicate glass is completely inert, so it never sheds particles into a carbonated or acidic drink the way a PET bottle and cap do — and it lasts for years, so it pays for itself against a habit of single-use bottles.

5. Klean Kanteen Classic 27oz — Best Budget All-Steel

For a plastic-free everyday bottle on a budget, the Classic is hard to beat — a single piece of food-grade steel with an all-steel cap option, and nothing inside that can wear loose into your drink. It's the entry swap for anyone replacing a single-use plastic habit without spending much.

6. Lifefactory Glass Bottle 22oz — Best Everyday Glass

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The honest verdict

Does soda have microplastics? Yes — the 2020 Shruti study found them in every soft drink tested at 2 to 39 particles per liter, and 2024 testing showed a plastic bottle sheds far more as you open and close it, climbing from about 4 particles to roughly 46–62 per liter. That part is real, and the plastic bottle and cap are the main reason. But the studies measured presence, not harm, and soda is a modest plastic source with a far bigger sugar problem. So the accurate takeaway is proportion, not alarm.

The practical response is easy. Treat soda as an occasional drink rather than a daily one, and if you buy it, glass beats plastic and a can's liner is a smaller compromise than a bottle you keep reopening. Then put your real effort where the volume is: filter your drinking water and get it out of single-use plastic. You don't have to prove the particles are harmful to decide that a filtered glass of water is the better default — for the plastic and the sugar alike.

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