Nature Geoscience, a scientific journal, has published a new study according to which microplastics have been discovered in a remote geographical area, in the French Pyrenees mountains. The study posits that these microplastic particles have travelled through the atmosphere and been blown by the wind, into the once-upon-a-time pristine region. This discovery illustrates the “hidden risks” that plastics pose.
Recent action by the government, private sector or civil society remains focused upon avoiding the littering of plastic in the environment. This has mainly been driven by the concerns for wildlife and the unsightly dumping of waste on beaches. The use of plastic bags has been reduced in many parts of the world and projects are underway about gathering up the floating plastic waste in oceans. However, the pollution caused by invisible plastic particles is invisible.
These micro/nano plastics are smaller than 5mm and are sourced from deliberately manufactured products, such as scrubbing materials in cleaning and cosmetic products. Secondary sources such breaking down of tyres, washing machines etc. also contribute to microplastic pollution. While people are becoming increasingly aware of their presence, there is little information about the magnitude in terms of how much is out there, how it behaves in the environment and implications for animal and human well-being.
New studies are increasingly being released, which indicate the magnitude of the plastic pollution in every environmental system that is investigated. For example, in the UK, record-breaking quantities have been found in river sediments. A study from Paris revealed the presence of plastic fibres in the air and wastewater. This contamination is unsurprising in polluted urban environments, but was unexpected in a place considered as clean, pristine and uninhabitated as the Pyrenees (straddling France and Spain), on a scale comparable to any major city. A survey in UK revealed that microplastics were found inside every marine mammal that was studied. Their presence have been detected in food and drinking water, in livers of fish as well as in the human food chain.
The researchers at the meteorological station of Bernadouze, located at an altitude of over 1,500 metres, had been collecting samples of atmospheric “fallout” over a five-month period in 2017-18. They used two monitoring devices to independently measure the particle concentrations of microplastics. They found many traces of airborne plastic, in the form of fibres, films and tiny fragments. While the scientists could identify the type of plastic, they could not ascertain the exact source or the distance they had travelled via wind, snow and rain, due to the absence of any local sources of plastic pollution. An analysis of the air flow patterns revealed that the particles had travelled at least a 100 kms.
This discovery lends credence to the fact that microplastics can move between environmental sub-systems in apparently innocuous ways, which release the particles in the atmosphere, allowing them to float across massive distances. This makes microplastics atmospheric pollutants. Unfortunately, these pose risks that are not fully understood yet, since they are not unreactive. Aside from the risks of inadvertent inhalation or ingestion of large volumes of microplastics, there are other hidden risks as well. The microplastics have relatively large surface areas and potentially provide sites for surface reactions. They can also act as rafts for organic pollution.
The main challenge is that these infinitesimal particles cannot be easily removed from the environment once exposed. Instead, their escape into the environment must be prevented in the first place, by addressing the problem at the source, to mitigate damage. Thus, there is an urgent need to determine the possible health effects and dangers of microplastics on people and the ecosystems. This must be accompanied by a consolidation of existing efforts to monitor and reduce human reliance on plastic and thereby stem the flow of plastic pollution from all corners of the world.
India Outbound
April 17, 2019
source https://indiaoutbound.org/burgeoning-microplastic-pollution/
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