Plastic Detox documentary claims the microplastic in your brain can make a spoon. The latest science says that’s ridiculous Brian Buntz | R & D World | March 30, 2026

https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2026/03/30/plastic-detox-documentary-claims-the-microplastic-in-your-brain-can-make-a-spoon-the-latest-science-says-thats-ridiculous/ Last year, we wrote about how a decimal-point error and selective framing turned black plastic spatulas into a public-health scare. Now Netflix’s The Plastic Detox is amplifying another over-the-top claim: that the human brain may contain enough microplastic to make a plastic spoon. That line traces to a February 2025 Nature Medicine paper from researchers at the University of New Mexico. In postmortem frontal cortex samples collected in 2024, the authors reported a median microplastic concentration of 4,917 µg/g, or roughly 0.49% by weight. Scale that to an average brain and you get a visually irresistible metaphor.