In a significant order, the Madras High Court has directed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as well as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to forewarn customers about the possible presence of micro and nano plastics (MNPs) in packaged drinking water, salt and sugar sold through Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles and in plastic packs.
A special Division Bench of Justices N. Sathish Kumar and D. Bharatha Chakravarthy, constituted to hear forest and environment related issues, ordered that the labels on the PET bottles as well as the sugar and salt packets must contain the warning ‘This water may contain micro/nano plastics’ or ‘This salt/sugar may contain micro/nano plastics’ in red colour font of size 10.
The Ministry, as well as FSSAI, were directed to issue an appropriate notification, in compliance of the court order, within four weeks and issue instructions to all companies that sell drinking water, salt and sugar in PET bottles and other plastic packaging to comply with the new labelling requirements scrupulously. The court also called for a status report from the FSSAI by April 10, 2026.
It was during the hearing of a case related to the ban imposed by Tamil Nadu government on single use plastics, amici curiae T. Mohan, Chevanan Mohan, Rahul Balaji and M. Santhanaraman told the court that the banned plastics somehow find their way into the pristine forests of the Nilgiris Biosphere and other parts of the Western Ghats and end up being consumed by the wild animals.
The court was also apprised of an interim report of a research undertaken by PSG Institue of Medical Sciences and Research in Coimbatore on the adverse impact caused by microplastics. The report stated that microplastics were small plastic fragments and they comprise several elements, including Bisphenol A (BPA) which was a chemical compound used in the production of plastics.
Since BPA could interfere with hormone functions, the institute measured its levels in cord blood. The analysis of 10 samples found the BPA concentration to range from 0.43 to 1.1578 µg/kg body weight in the samples. “The average concentration was 0.7194 0.2 µg/kg body weight. As per current guidelines, these concentrations were above the recommended tolerable daily intake (TDI) value of 0.2 ng/kg bw/day,” the report read.
When the judges wanted to iknow if the Union Health Ministry or the FSSAI had carried out any studies so far regarding adverse impact of MNPs on human health, central government senior panel counsel V. Chandrasekharan said, the issues related to micro plastics in food and related health concerns were deliberated upon at the 14th meeting of the scientific panel on packaging held in Mumbai on April 17, 2025.
He also said, a project titled ‘Micro and Nano-Plastics as Emerging Food Contaminants: Establishing Validated Methodologies and Understanding the Prevalence in Different Food Matrices’ was launched by FSSAI in March 2024 in collaboration with CSIR-Indian Institute of Toxicology Research (CSIR-IITR), Lucknow; ICAR-Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (ICAR-CIFT), Kochi and Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani.
Immediately, the judges called for the project report, perused it and found it to have said: “The occurrence of micro plastics in commercially available bottled water was analyzed. 11 samples from six locations (Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Haryana, Karnataka and Maharashtra) were collected. These samples showed the presence of micro plastics in drinking water.”
The Division Bench also found the project report to have found the presence of micro plastics in salt and sugar samples. “The combined approach of Raman Spectroscopy and Fluorescence Imaging Techniques has been proven effective in detecting microplastics in different salt and sugar samples, with lodised salts having the highest number of microplastics, followed by black salts and rock salts, respectively,” the report read.
Though FSSAI Joint Director G.V. Srinivasan told the court that the studies were in an initial and nascent stage and that the research would have to be continued before coming to a conclusive decision on the harmful effects of micro plastics, the judges said, the finding of the initial studies were sufficient to warn consumers about the presence of micro plastics in the water, salt and sugar they consume.
“It is only the seriousness of the impact and how much dose the human body can withstand etc. would be revealed by the further study. Therefore, whether water can be sold in these PET bottles or not is the decision that has to be taken by the FSSAI, after conclusion of the studies… However, if ultimately the studies prove it to be harmful, until then the matter cannot be gone unchecked,” the Bench wrote.
It also said: “We are of the view that safety is the primordial factor which should be considered. In these matters, which pose grave health risk, one should only lean or even err on the side of safety. This court is of the view that until the study is finalized, the least expected of the respondent authorities is to mandate a label informing the customers that the food items… may contain micro plastics.”
Published – February 14, 2026 10:39 am IST
