Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
A plastic bottle thrown into a drain does not really disappear. Nor does it stay whole. Plastic resists the bacteria that break down a banana peel or a paper bag, so instead of rotting, it splinters. Sunlight makes it brittle, and the pieces keep shrinking without ever going away. Below five millimetres, scientists call them microplastics, and at that size the puzzle is no longer where plastic goes. It is how it comes back.
Most microplastics are made small by attrition: car tyres grinding against the road, waves rolling broken bottles against sand, a polyester kurta rubbing against itself in the washing machine. One wash can loosen thousands of fibres. They drain away to treatment plants, which catch a good share of them. That catch is not the end of the story. The trapped sludge is often spread on farmland as fertiliser, and the fibres taken out of the water end up in the soil where crops grow.
The sea does the rest. Fish take in particles along with their food. Mussels and oysters, which we eat whole, gut and all, hand theirs straight to us. Sea salt, made by drying seawater, keeps whatever the water held. Studies have found microplastics in tap water, and in bottled water too, which many people buy to avoid the tap.
What all this does to the body is still uncertain. Scientists have not shown how much harm, if any, these particles cause at the levels we take in. I find that harder to sit with than a clear danger would be. Switching to a steel bottle is a decent habit. It does little about the tyre dust settling on a wheat field beside the highway.
Which of the following is the most suitable title for the passage?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Gone but Not Away: How Plastic Returns to Our Plates and Glasses
This title covers both halves of the passage.
- “Gone but Not Away” matches the opening: a thrown bottle seems to disappear, but it only breaks into smaller pieces.
- “Returns to Our Plates and Glasses” matches the rest: the pieces come back through seafood, salt, tap water and bottled water.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: Plastic in the Sea: A Growing Threat to Marine Life — Incorrect. Wrong focus: The sea is one route in the passage. The passage is about plastic reaching people, not harm to sea animals.
Option 3: Microplastics: Why Bottled Water Is the Safer Choice — Incorrect. Contradicted: Studies have found microplastics “in bottled water too”. The passage never calls bottled water safer.
Option 4: Why Our Synthetic Clothes Are Polluting the Rivers — Incorrect. Too narrow: Clothes are one source in the second paragraph. Synthetic means man-made, like polyester. The passage also covers tyres, bottles, seafood and salt.