New Research: Airborne Microplastics Blanket the Planet

It’s one of the best-known quotes in the Hollywood film canon, a bit of unsolicited career advice given to a young Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate:

“There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?”

Hoffman’s character didn’t have much of a future in the corporate world, but it turned out that the future was bright for the chemical substance itself. It’s no surprise that plastics have conquered our mass-consumption society. From containers to cars, packaging to polyester, plastics are everywhere.

And now, that includes the air we breathe.

Last month a team of researchers from Yukon University released a study that found unexpected levels of microplastics in the atmosphere. What made the results even more surprising was the fact that air samples were taken in Whitehorse, where the expectation would be for pure, healthy, crystal-clear air.

“There was a lot of media coverage and scientific publications on microplastic pollution in the oceans and in the water supplies,” said John Postma, lead author of the study. “But everywhere humans have looked, we have found microplastics. Tops of mountains, bottoms of the ocean, in our rivers, in our guts, in our cells, in everything, basically.”

This comes at a time when environmentalists are warning about government initiatives that are sowing microplastics into agricultural fields. Plastics form the outer shell of slow-release nitrogen fertilizers, which the federal government believes are key to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and limiting runoff from farms.

As Canada's National Observer reported earlier this month: “Once the nitrogen has been absorbed or dissolved, the fertilizer’s plastic coating stays in the soil. These tiny plastic particles can then accumulate in the ground or leach into waterways, absorbing other chemicals along the way that can harm people and the environment.”

Microplastics from these coatings may carry trace amounts of pesticides and fertilizer, adding to the health risk.

“Studies show microplastics can travel widely through the ocean and air and in human bodies; they act like sponges, absorbing harmful chemicals from the environment before releasing them into people or animals. …  Microplastics can also travel into or onto crops, eventually making their way into human food.”

Last year research published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) confirmed that agricultural fields were one of three main sources of microplastics in the atmosphere, along with oceans and highways.

Meanwhile, a study published in April in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment described the geographic reach of tiny plastic fibers: “Plastic pollution is now pervasive in the Arctic, even in areas with no apparent human activity, such as the deep seafloor. … [Microplastics] have infiltrated terrestrial and aquatic systems, the cryosphere and the atmosphere. Although some pollution is from local sources — fisheries, landfills, wastewater and offshore industrial activity — distant regions are a substantial source, as plastic is carried from lower latitudes to the Arctic by ocean currents, atmospheric transport and rivers.”

Together, these recent studies have begun to reveal the extraordinary dimensions of a serious environmental crisis. Their findings are a compelling invitation to scientists to examine one more essential issue: What are the health effects of constant exposure to these miniature polymers?

With microplastics everywhere — from dense cities to remote wilderness, from soil to air — it’s a question we’d better answer soon.