A startling new report by Business Insider has revealed the extent to which the average American unknowingly consumes plastic every day.

The average American consumes about 200 tiny pieces of plastic every day. While consuming a small amount of plastic isn’t too harmful, having too much plastic in your diet is quite unhealthy. While you never notice yourself eating these tiny “microplastics,” they can have strange and scary effects on your health. Plastics are bad for your health when you’re not eating them, but when you’re eating plastic on a daily basis, it can have serious consequences. There are different categories of chemicals in plastic packaging, including phthalates, at least one of which can lead to cancer. The US National Institutes of Health has linked plastics to cancers, reduced sperm count in men, complications in women’s abilities to get pregnant and give birth, and the impairment of development in young children.

These tiny microplastics are ubiquitous in the modern world, and have even been linked to the massive drop in the average male’s sperm counts in the last five decades. It has been noted that the average male’s sperm count has plummeted by about 50% since the 70s in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The evidence linking plastics to decreased sperm counts in men isn’t concrete yet, but there are also links that have been found between phthalates and reduced male testosterone levels. Research into the topic is still young, at the moment.

Microplastics are most often consumed by humans via fibers and well as plastic fragments from all forms of plastic. If your body doesn’t sneeze or cough these microplastics out, they will enter your digestive system and cause all kinds of problems. If the microplastics don’t enter the digestive system through the mucociliary clearing, they will get stuck in your lungs.