It’s been made pretty clear at this point that heating up plastics is bad, and also that we all are basically made up of a good percentage of the stuff.

But if you haven’t taken the warnings about not heating your food in plastic containers seriously before now, this latest study just might do the trick.

That was definitely the case for researcher Kazi Albab Hussain as he conducted and published the study in qustion.

His curiosity began, he says, because he was buying baby foods for the first time in his life and most of them came in plastic containers.

He studied the containers under various conditions and found that 75% of cultured kidney cells died after being exposed to the particulates in the microwaved containers.

His findings support the thesis that microplastics are released when plastic containers are heated, and that nanoplastics and toxic chemicals called leachates find their way into foods – and people.

Our kidneys are pretty good at filtering out larger pieces of microplastics, but not as skilled at the smaller ones, which can slip through our cell membranes.

Chemistry professor John Boland says they then make their way to places they shouldn’t.”

“Microplastics are like plastic roughage: They get in, and they get expelled. But it’s quite likely that nanoplastics can be very toxic.”

The study’s authors say that one solution is making plastics out of different polymers, but that will also cost more money – and we all know how businesses feel about that.

Still, Hussain says it’s possible.

“I am hopeful that a day will come when these products display labels that read ‘microplastics-free’ or ‘nanoplastics-free.'”

In the meantime consider the cost to your kidneys the next time you feel too lazy to take your leftovers out of the plastic storage container and put them in a bowl.

It’s probably worth it.