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Microplastics are raining down from the sky

It’s entirely possible that tiny fragments of the windbreaker from your childhood, the straw you used sometime last year, or the label from a soft drink you had yesterday are now floating around in the atmosphere. The amount of plastic produced globally increases every year and so does the amount of mismanaged plastic waste that ends up in the environment. In 2017, 348 million metric tons of plastic were produced, and it is estimated that 1218% of this total annual production ended up in the environment. Plastic is not readily biodegradable; it can spend decades and even centuries in the environment, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, these pieces are small enough to be entrained in the atmosphere and carried by the wind. There are several possible pathways for plastic emissions to the atmosphere. A likely prominent source are emissions from the marine environment, where wave action can emit plastics through sea spray. Roads may also contribute to plastic emissions, not just from tire-wear plastics, but also from debris collected on the road surface and broken down to fine dust. Another likely prominent source is the erosion of agricultural soils that have been fertilized with biosolids collected at wastewater treatment plants. Because the filtration systems in these wastewater treatment plants are effective at retaining microplastics in the solid fraction, the produced fertilizer also has high amounts of microplastics.