It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains
Source: The Guardian
It's raining plastic: microscopic fibers fall from the sky in Rocky Mountains
Discovery raises new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth
Maanvi Singh in San Francisco
Tue 13 Aug 2019 06.00 BST Last modified on Tue 13 Aug 2019 06.01 BST
Plastic was the furthest thing from Gregory Weatherbee’s mind when he began analyzing rainwater samples collected from the Rocky Mountains.“I guess I expected to see mostly soil and mineral particles,” said the US Geologic Survey researcher. Instead, he found multicolored microscopic plastic fibers.
The discovery, published in a recent study titled “It is raining plastic”, is raising new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth.
“I think the most important result that we can share with the American public is that there’s more plastic out there than meets the eye,” said Weatherbee. “It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
Rainwater samples collected across Colorado and analyzed under a microscope contained a rainbow of plastic fibers, as well as beads and shards. The findings shocked Weatherbee, who had been collecting the samples in order to study nitrogen pollution.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/12/raining-plastic-colorado-usgs-microplastics
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Related: It is Raining Plastic. (U.S. Geological Survey)
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