Dr. Sanjay Gupta

It is in everything, including our food supply, the packaging it comes in, our homes, our furniture, our clothing.

It's even in personal care products and medical supplies.

There's no question plastic can make our lives easier in so many ways.

But microplastics and nanoplastics, everyone should pay attention to this.

They have made their way into our bodies.

into our brains, our reproductive organs, our cardiovascular system.

So yeah, considering alternatives to plastic is essential, maybe even urgent.

Let's talk about silicon for a second.

What's it made of?

Silica is the main ingredient of silicone.

It's a compound naturally found in rocks.

Silicone itself is not a natural product.

Let me repeat that.

Silicone itself is not a natural product.

What happens is the silica undergoes a pretty complicated chemical process to be turned into silicone.

Now, silicone is more expensive than plastic because the process we're talking about is long and costs more to make.

So what is the fundamental difference then between silicone and plastic?

The main thing with plastic is that it's fundamentally not a stable material.

Tiny bits of it break off and enter the environment and your food.

That's what we're talking about with microplastics and nanoplastics.