Blood Plastic: The Audacious Claim to Filter Microplastics from Our Veins

Jul 9

There is plastic in our oceans.
There is plastic in our food.
There is plastic in the rain, in the air, in the snow falling across untouched mountain ranges.

And now…there is plastic in our blood.

The modern world is made of polymers.
We drink from it, eat off it, wrap ourselves in it.
And like any material worshipped too long, it has made its way inside us.

But what happens when the artificial becomes internal?
When the things we made start making us?

A startup in London has an answer: one part science, one part alchemy, one part bold performance art.
They say they can cleanse the bloodstream of microplastics.

And people are lining up to let them try.

The Plastic Within Us

Let’s begin with the truth that still sounds like fiction: microplastics have been found in human blood.

In 2022, scientists in the Netherlands confirmed what many feared but few could prove: tiny fragments of plastic had crossed the barrier, had entered the bloodstream.
Polymers like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polystyrene, commonly used in packaging and takeout containers, were detected coursing through veins.

Before that, plastic had already been discovered in lungs, placentas, breast milk, and even sperm.
It is no longer a question of if but how much.

These plastic particles are often smaller than a grain of sand, invisible to the naked eye, but deeply disruptive to biology.
They may carry endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, or simply act as inflammation triggers.
They mimic hormones. They interfere with cellular signaling.
They nestle quietly where they don’t belong.

They are, quite literally, the synthetic ghosts of our throwaway world.

A Startling Offer: Purify Your Blood

Enter Clarify Clinics, a startup based in London that offers something startling:

For £10,000 (about $12,600), they will hook you to a machine for two hours, filter your blood through a proprietary device, and return it to your body…free of microplastics.

They call it Clari.

Located on Harley Street, London’s famed home of elite medicine and cosmetic innovation, the clinic looks like a cross between a luxury spa and a futuristic lab.

The procedure, according to Clarify, uses a form of plasmapheresis…a medical technique typically reserved for serious autoimmune diseases or cases of heavy metal poisoning.
But here, it's being repurposed for the wellness elite.
Not to treat disease, but to cleanse the modern condition.

The company is headed by Yael Cohen, a woman with a background in data, healthcare investing, and philanthropy.
Her motivation, she says, came from a sense that something was deeply wrong in how we live today, that we needed a radical new tool to push back against exposure.

“We’re exposed to so much we can’t control,” she told Wired. “I wanted to build something that lets us take some of that control back.”

How the Clari Filter Works

The Clari procedure goes something like this:

Blood is drawn from one arm, much like in dialysis.
It passes through a machine that separates out the plasma (the fluid that carries hormones, nutrients, and, apparently, plastic).
That plasma is run through a custom filter, designed to trap particles too small for traditional filters to catch.
The “cleansed” plasma is then recombined with the blood cells and returned to the body.

According to Clarify, their filter can trap not only microplastics, but also PFAS (so-called ‘forever chemicals’), pesticides, and inflammatory proteins.

They describe it as a deep clean for the bloodstream. A detox that doesn’t rely on juice, but science.

But here’s the catch:
No independent, peer-reviewed studies have yet verified these claims.

The Science Behind the Spectacle

Plasmapheresis is not a new procedure. It has been used for decades in hospitals for patients with conditions like lupus, multiple sclerosis, and certain blood cancers.
It’s not without risks: infection, electrolyte imbalance, bleeding, and removal of useful proteins can all occur.

But using it to remove environmental toxins? That’s new.

And controversial.

The company did conduct an internal study in Germany, where plastic particles were reportedly found in plasma samples before filtration and absent after.
But the sample size was small, and skeptics have raised questions about contamination during testing…a huge problem in microplastics research.
Even a single synthetic fiber from clothing can distort results.

Clarify says it’s working with leading scientists to validate the technology. But as of now, the data lives in a gray space…not disproven, but not confirmed.

Still, the clinic has treated over 100 patients already, and demand is growing.

Orlando Bloom and the Rise of Wellness Theater

This is where the story takes a curious turn.

Actor Orlando Bloom posted on Instagram in June 2024 that he had undergone the Clari procedure. A photo showed him reclining with IVs in both arms, and the caption read: “Clearing the bloodstream of plastics, one particle at a time.”

The internet erupted.

Was this the future of celebrity biohacking?
Or just another wellness stunt, like ozone enemas and cryotherapy tanks?

Bloom’s endorsement wasn’t the only one. Cohen herself said she’s seen people “come alive” after treatment, reporting better sleep, improved skin, mental clarity. She even tracked her own results via an Oura ring, showing lower resting heart rate and more restorative sleep post-treatment.

But is it real? Or placebo?

Maybe both.

A Price Tag for Purity

Let’s not forget the cost:
£9,750. For a two-hour session.
Repeat sessions are recommended annually.

For most people, that’s not a treatment. That’s a luxury.
An elite ritual. A statement of status.
A declaration: “I care about purity more than you.”

This is where the story sharpens its edge.

Because even if Clari does work (even if it’s the future of internal detox!) who gets access to that future?
Who can afford to “cleanse” themselves of modernity?

And more hauntingly: why do we believe we can filter away our lifestyle while still living it?

Can We Ever Undo This?

This is more than medicine. It’s mythology.

Clarify has tapped into something primal: the idea that we can undo the damage of our world with the right device. That we can rinse our cells of plastic the way we rinse our dishes.
That the artificial can be exorcised.

But what if we’re asking the wrong question?

What if the goal isn’t to remove the plastic from our veins, but to actually stop filling the world with it in the first place?

We made this mess not by accident, but by convenience.
Single-use bottles. Shrink wrap. Polyester fast fashion. Takeout lids.

And now, having saturated the planet, we are paying thousands to cleanse ourselves of our own choices.

It’s as poetic as it is tragic.
Like trying to pull ink out of paper.
Like trying to unbake a cake.

The Human Body as a Battleground Between Nature and Industry

We were once made of stardust, soil, salt. Now we are stitched with plastic.
Our blood contains not just the memory of ancient oceans and evolutionary tides, but packaging residue, polymer fragments, and fibers spun in factories.
The human body has become a contested space…where biology meets industry, where the ancient meets the artificial.

Our cells don’t know what to do with this new information.
Our immune systems whisper of invaders.
Our livers scramble to make sense of foreign particles.
And all the while, we continue to inhale, ingest, absorb.

Clarify’s machine might clean the blood, but it can’t restore innocence.
That was lost somewhere between the convenience aisle and the landfill.
The question now isn’t just whether we can remove plastic, but whether we can return to ourselves.
To bodies made of rivers, not runoff.

The Marketing of Cleanliness in a World That’s Anything But

“Detox” is no longer a function…it’s a fantasy.
And Clarify knows this. They’ve bottled the modern ache for purity. Not just in the blood, but in the image. Their clinic’s crisp white walls and serene tones mirror a spiritual sanctum.
The machine becomes a sacrament.
The IV drip, a prayer.

But this isn’t just medicine, it’s marketing.
Wellness culture has perfected the art of selling the illusion of control. In a world on fire, it tells you that you can remain untouched. That you can sip celery juice, wear linen, and be saved.

Yet all of it…every curated ritual…floats on a sea of plastic.
The robe, the syringe, the Wi-Fi.
Can we really buy our way out of the mess we breathe in?

What It Means to Have Pollution With No Borders

Plastic doesn’t honor boundaries. It doesn’t stop at oceans or customs or class lines. It travels on wind, floats in rain, rides currents across hemispheres.
It seeps into soil and settles into marrow.
Even the Arctic snow now carries plastic.

And so do we.

The idea that we can filter it from our blood (while the world still burns plastic by the ton) is a dream with blinders. This isn’t a local infection. It’s systemic.
You can’t detox one vein in a poisoned river. You must rethink the source.

Clarify’s filter might trap particles.
But until society stops producing them, we’re just bailing water from a sinking ship with gold-plated buckets.

The Slow Realization That Modern Life Is a Biohazard

There’s a creeping awareness…slow but undeniable…that much of what defines modernity is toxic by design. We are surrounded by compounds that didn’t exist a century ago. Flame retardants in mattresses.
VOCs in paint. Endocrine disruptors in receipts.
PFAS in mascara.

And the effects are subtle.
Not fire and brimstone.
But fatigue. Infertility. Inflammation. Anxiety with no origin. Immune systems that can’t distinguish between invaders and ourselves.

Clarify’s rise signals that people feel something is wrong, even when the science hasn’t caught up.
We’re not imagining it. We’re carrying it.
In our skin. Our wombs. Our blood.

The modern world is both miracle and minefield.
And our bodies? The canaries.

The Ethics of Wellness for the Wealthy

Here’s where the IV drip runs cold: who gets to be clean?
Clarify’s service costs more than most people’s monthly income.
And yet the people most affected by plastic pollution aren’t the ones getting plasma filters. They’re the ones living near landfills, drinking from contaminated water, working in factories that make the very polymers we’re trying to remove.

This is not health equity. It’s health theater.

When detox becomes a luxury brand, we lose sight of justice.
Because true purification wouldn’t be personal, it would be systemic.
It wouldn’t happen in private clinics, it would happen in public policy.

Clarify might be the future of boutique wellness.
But the real revolution will come when we stop poisoning people in the first place.

What Happens to the “Filtered” Plastics?

Here’s a question rarely asked:
Where do the filtered particles go?

If Clarify’s machines are pulling microplastics from blood, then what becomes of the filter cartridges? Are they incinerated? Stored? Studied? Or do they quietly join the waste stream, another layer in the landfill sediment of human attempts at purity?

It’s the same paradox as green tech and carbon capture…cleaning the air by creating more machines that must be cleaned.
Filtering plastic with plastic.
Using modern tools to undo modern harm, all while creating new byproducts no one wants to talk about.

You cannot out-sterilize entropy.
Eventually, every filter must be emptied.
And every attempt at perfection will leave residue.

The Ancient Desire to Be Clean and the New Ways We Pursue It

Bloodletting. Fasting. Sweat lodges. Charcoal. Chelation. Cryotherapy.
Humans have always sought ways to purge what feels impure.
Clarify is simply the latest chapter in an ancient book…a new translation of the same yearning: to feel new inside.
To be cleansed not just of toxins, but of choices.

But cleansing has always walked a fine line between healing and performance.
Between medicine and myth.

The Clari machine doesn’t just drain your plasma, it whispers a promise:
That you can start over.
That your body can be clean, even if your world is not.

And maybe that’s the real allure…not the science, but the story.
That we can erase the past.
And be remade.

What You Can Actually Do (That Doesn’t Cost $10,000)

For those of us not ready to drop five figures on an unproven treatment, there are steps we can take to reduce exposure to microplastics:

Avoid heating food in plastic containers. Heat increases leaching.
Switch to stainless steel, glass, or bamboo for storage and utensils.
Filter your water. Many high-end filters can remove microplastic particles.
Choose natural fibers like cotton or wool over synthetics.
Minimize fast fashion and opt for slow, sustainable clothing.
Buy bulk. Reduce plastic packaging.
Support legislation that bans microbeads and reduces single-use plastics.
Eat more whole foods. Highly processed products are often higher in plastic exposure (from packaging, processing, etc.).

And perhaps most importantly: stay informed. Ask hard questions. Read past the headlines. Look deeper than the label.

Because if we can’t filter our blood, maybe we can at least filter our choices.

The Performance of Purity

Clarify’s promise is not just scientific.
It’s spiritual.

They’re not just offering a medical service.
They’re selling absolution.

A way to say: “I live in a poisoned world, but I’m clean.”
A way to rewrite the narrative of modernity, not as a tragedy, but as something you can undo with a swipe of your very plastic credit card and a two-hour IV drip.

But the truth is, no machine can absolve us from the culture that built the need for it.

We are stitched together with the materials we invented.
And no filter, no matter how advanced, can erase that.

Still, Clarify’s boldness matters. It forces the conversation. It challenges the quiet acceptance of pollution as normal. And in that way, it may do something even more important than purifying blood:

It may awaken us to what’s already inside.

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Michele Gargiulo http://michelegargiulo.com