Scientists have been sounding the alarm that microplastics are in our water, air, and even our bodies — until someone realized their own lab gloves were secretly seasoning every sample like a plastic-flavored fairy dust. Those handy nitrile and latex gloves come pre-coated in stearates that look suspiciously like microplastics under the microscope. So the next time a study says “plastic is everywhere,” remember: sometimes the contamination was just the researchers high-fiving their equipment with soapy ghost particles.
