Recently, a team of researchers from the US Geological Survey (USGS) has been analyzing rainwater samples for nitrogen pollution and they found something quite mind-blowing.
Experts found something that they were definitely not expecting – plastic.
The new report is called “It is raining plastic.” and in it, the experts explain that plastics were discovered in more than 90% of the rainwater samples that they took at eight different sites.
Most of these are between Denver and Boulder, Colorado.
ScienceAlert notes that it would not be surprising for microplastics to contaminate most of the sample sites. This is due to the huge abundance of plastic in urban locations. Some of these locations are remote.
One of them is called CO98 and it is 3,159 meters (10,400 feet) above sea level in the Rocky Mountains.
“More plastic fibers were observed in samples from urban sites than from remote, mountainous sites,” the team explained in the report.
“However, frequent observation of plastic fibers in washout samples from the remote site CO98 at Loch Vale in Rocky Mountain National Park suggests that wet deposition of plastic is ubiquitous and not just an urban condition.”
The team found strains of plastic
It’s been also reported that the team found mostly strands of plastic and these looked like microfibers from synthetic materials. As you probably know, these make up lots of clothes.
People consume at least 70,000 microplastic particles on a yearly basis, and the oceans are currently under the strain of millions of tones of these things.
“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,” one of the researchers and USGS research chemist Gregory Wetherbee told The Guardian.
“It’s in the rain, it’s in the snow. It’s a part of our environment now.”
I have been blogging and posting articles for over eight years, but my passion for writing dates back in 2000. I am especially enthusiastic about technology, science, and health-related issues. When I’m not researching and writing the latest news, I’m either watching sci-fi and horror movies or checking out places worth visiting and building deep memories for later in life. I believe in empathy and continually improving myself.