Does Dasani have microplastics?
The short answer
Yes, and measured rather than assumed. Dasani was one of the eleven brands tested in Mason 2018, the study that found microplastic in 93% of 259 bottles. Like Aquafina it is purified municipal water, so the packaging is the variable.
PET plastic bottle format profile
Why Dasani scores 64
Brand-specific measurement exists — Dasani was in the tested cohort
PET wall and cap in contact with the water from filling to opening
Purified municipal source, so the water arrives clean and the bottle is what it then sits in
Mass-market distribution at ambient temperature
Where the 64 comes from
Five components, added. The page renders the parts rather than a stored total, so the number cannot disagree with the reasoning behind it.
- Packaging contact
- 23 / 30
- Use conditions
- 10 / 25
- Measured release
- 22 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 6 / 10
- Processing
- 3 / 10
What material touches the contents, over how much surface area, for how long. Glass and steel score near zero here; a film pressed against fatty food scores near the top.
Heat, abrasion, flexing, repeated opening, reuse beyond design life. The same bottle scores differently in a fridge and in a hot car.
What a laboratory actually counted, for this product or its category. A high number here means real particles were measured, not that the material looks suspicious.
How this specific polymer behaves — brittleness, fat solubility of its additives, thermal stability, whether it is a polymer named in existing restrictions.
What happened before you bought it. Retort sterilisation inside the pack, hot-filling, and pressurised brewing all happen at the most migration-favourable moment.
What we don't know
Same method ceiling as every 2018-era count: particles below about 100 μm were not resolved. Nobody has published a Raman or SRS re-test of Dasani, so the true count is very likely higher than the 2018 figure rather than lower.
This section is on every page in the database, including the ones where the answer is comfortable. How evidence grades work →
Better options
Ordered by how much they change, not by how much they cost.
Filtered tap water
Dasani is filtered tap water in a bottle
Glass-bottled water
measured, and measured low
Refillable steel bottle
removes single-use PET from the routine
Check the one in your hand
This page scores Dasani as a product. Formulations, packaging and suppliers change, and the specific item you own has its own condition — a scratched pan and a new one are not the same object. Scan yours for a score built from what is actually in front of you.
Scan my drinking waterSources behind this score
Each with the finding we use it for and the limitation that finding carries — because a study quoted without its boundaries is how this subject got so noisy.
- peer-reviewed2018
Mason 2018 — 93% of 259 bottles across 11 international brands contained microplastic; an average of 325 particles per litre across all size classes.
Limitation: Nile-red staining and optical microscopy only reliably resolve particles above ~100 μm, so its counts are a floor, not a total. Lower numbers here do not mean less plastic than the 2024 study — they mean a less sensitive method.
- peer-reviewed2024
PNAS 2024 (Qian) — Counted roughly 240,000 plastic particles per litre in bottled water, about 90% of them nanoplastics that earlier optical methods could not see at all.
Limitation: Three unnamed US brands, small sample. It measured particles, not absorption or any health outcome, and the brands were not disclosed — so it cannot be attributed to a specific label.
- agency2026
US FDA — States that current scientific evidence does not demonstrate that the levels of microplastics detected in foods pose a risk to human health, while listing detection and characterisation as a research priority.
Limitation: A statement about the state of evidence, not a finding of safety. "Not demonstrated to be harmful" and "demonstrated to be harmless" are different claims, and the agency is explicit that the research is ongoing.