People have known about acid rain for decades and while we have no solution to fix it, another problem has come at the fore: Plastic rain.
The strange thing about plastic rain is that it’s found over forests, national parks and green areas but not cities – and nobody knows why this happens, and this is a situation that has caused grave worry and panic.
Raining microplastic can cause much more damage than acid rain, and it’d be virtually impossible to tackle it.
How much plastic is in a single rain?
Rain and winds often bring dust particles with them, and dust usually rains down with the raindrops. That is why when the raining clouds clear, we see clearer skies and feel fresher air.
But what happens in plastic rain is that thousands of tons of plastic in the form of tiny particles fall along with the rain.
If you want a proper estimate, then an average rain can dump the amount of plastic which is worth 900 million plastic water bottles.
How does plastic get into the raindrops?
The above findings were published in the journal Science. Lead researcher Janice Brahney from the Utah State University said how plastic rain is possible and how it happens:
“Plastics don’t decompose. They just break down into smaller and smaller fibers, and that allows them to be transported through the atmosphere, repeatedly being carried through the atmosphere.”
World produces 500 million metric tons of plastic every year, on an average. And most of these plastics eventually break down into small fibers and particles. The broken down plastic is called “microplastic” and it often ends up in rivers, lakes, oceans, mountaintops, and even the atmosphere.
Why is it not found in the cities?
The scientists discovered plastic rain only in the remote areas such as forests because they were searching for phosphorus rain in such areas, and discovered plastic rain purely by accident.
They have said that they need to set up their equipment in urban areas as well, because they are certain that the plastic rain is falling in cities as well.
“It would make sense that plastic pollution is falling everywhere and probably at higher rates in urban areas. Our study was a bit of an accident as we meant to study phosphorus deposition in remote locations. Otherwise, we would have set up sites in cities!”
The most dangerous aspect of microplastic rain is that it can easily be breathed through the air, and the particles are small enough to be lodged in your lung tissue and other internal body parts – causing severe damage to your health. And plastics don’t decompose or disintegrate that easily so if you get microplastics inside you then they’ll be lodged up inside throughout your life.
Microplastics can also get in drinking water, and into the animals such as cows and chickens which we raise for food.
So there are many ways for these raining microplastics to get inside our body.
What can we do to save ourselves?
Featured Image Courtesy: WIRED
Comments
comments