'Plastic Rain' Shows Shocking Amount Of Tiny Plastic Pieces, Less Than 5mm Present In Wind, Rain

An unsettling discovery has been made by a new research that warns us that the presence of plastics in the environment might be a more serious problem than previously thought. As per the study, presence of plastics discarded by humans is not just on the land and sea but also in the rain in the form of microplastics.

Microplastic particles or tiny (less than 5 millimeters) fragments of plastic bottles and microfibers from clothes, have been found by scientists in the air as well as the rain cycle in the new study. Scientists say that the pollutants have been caught up in Earth¡¯s atmospheric systems and are now being deposited in pristine environments like the Arctic and Antarctic at a rate previously unknown.

Scientists say that the microplastics now form a part of the atmospheric processes in many regions of Earth. They are flowing into the oceans with the wastewater. From the oceans, they are coming back to the land with the sea breezes. And now they are mixing with the rain to form plastic rain - considered to be worse than the acid rain.

The Shocking Report

(Representative Image: Reuters)

In a new study published in the journal Science, researchers report the presence of microplastics in rainwater and air samples collected for 14 months across 11 protected areas in the western US. As per the calculations of the scientists, over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into these areas each year.

The quantity is equivalent to 120 million plastic water bottles.

Janice Brahney, lead author of the study and an environmental scientist at Utah State University says, ¡°We just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area. The number was just so large, it's shocking.¡±

The scientists were able to detect the presence of microplastics in almost 98 percent of samples collected over a year. On average, 4 percent of captured atmospheric particulates were actually synthetic polymers.

¡°I was just completely floored to see little brightly-colored pieces of plastic in nearly every single sample,¡± says Brahney. The study notes that the team was not able to identify clear or white particles and fibers with their equipment, so the actual quantity of microplastic present is likely more than what is being indicated.

Plastic rain

Microplastic collected in remote areas of the western US. (Image: Janice Brahney/Utah State University)

As per the samples observed in the study, the microplastic particles seen in the rain were larger than those deposited by wind. Those caught in the wind are usually lighter and hence are transported by winds over large distances, increasing their area of presence, fundamentally across the planet.

Rain, however, has a tendency of settling such particles down to the ground. Pieces of microplastics come down mixed with rain giving rise to a new term - Plastic rain which is possibly worse than acid rain as there is no known way of correcting this issue.

Even though the microplastics are brought to the ground, their presence is not negated in the environment. Microplastics have managed to enter almost every step of atmospheric circulation and because of their durability, they do not just vanish on their own, even decades after they are discarded. Instead, they break into even smaller pieces and become nanoplastics.

¡°I couldn't see anything smaller than four microns, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there,¡± says Brahney. ¡°Just because we can't see them in front of us, doesn't mean we're not breathing them in.¡±

A report by Wired cites a McKinsey prediction that the plastic waste across the Earth is only going to grow by 2030 to an extent of being nearly double of what it is today. If proper measures are not taken to correct the situation, it will be no wonder if such microplastic particles are found in even more places on Earth.