Atmospheric microplastics: A review on current status and perspectives

Zhang, Yulan; Kang, Shichang; Allen, Steve; Allen, Deonie; Gao, Tanguang; Sillanpää, Mika

doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103118

Cited by 722 publications

(392 citation statements)

References 86 publications

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“…To date there have been very few atmospheric MP studies. Of the studies undertaken, presented in recently published reviews [30][31][32], it is noted that MP particle of fibre, film, foam and fragment shapes have been found in atmospheric deposition and sampled air masses. MP sizes range down to 10μm (lower limit of detection published to date) and up to 5mm but with a greater proportion of sampled particles <500μm [30][31][32].…”

Section: Atmospheric Microplasticmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of the studies undertaken, presented in recently published reviews [30][31][32], it is noted that MP particle of fibre, film, foam and fragment shapes have been found in atmospheric deposition and sampled air masses. MP sizes range down to 10μm (lower limit of detection published to date) and up to 5mm but with a greater proportion of sampled particles <500μm [30][31][32]. Atmospheric MP has been sampled by deposition and active air mass (pumped) sampling, presenting up to 1008 MP/m 2 /day deposition [33] and 60 MP/m 3 in air mass sampling [34].…”

Section: Atmospheric Microplasticmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics

et al. 2020

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Global plastic litter pollution has been increasing alongside demand since plastic products gained commercial popularity in the 1930's. Current plastic pollutant research has generally assumed that once plastics enter the ocean they are there to stay, retained permanently within the ocean currents, biota or sediment until eventual deposition on the sea floor or become washed up onto the beach. In contrast to this, we suggest it appears that some plastic particles could be leaving the sea and entering the atmosphere along with sea salt, bacteria, virus' and algae. This occurs via the process of bubble burst ejection and wave action, for example from strong wind or sea state turbulence. In this manuscript we review evidence from the existing literature which is relevant to this theory and follow this with a pilot study which analyses microplastics (MP) in sea spray. Here we show first evidence of MP particles, analysed by μRaman, in marine boundary layer air samples on the French Atlantic coast during both onshore (average of 2.9MP/m 3) and offshore (average of 9.6MP/ m 3) winds. Notably, during sampling, the convergence of sea breeze meant our samples were dominated by sea spray, increasing our capacity to sample MPs if they were released from the sea. Our results indicate a potential for MPs to be released from the marine environment into the atmosphere by sea-spray giving a globally extrapolated figure of 136000 ton/yr blowing on shore. Missing plastic in the marine microplastic models Since the first evidence of anthropogenic plastic litter affecting sea birds in the 1960's [1,2] there has been a steadily growing awareness that plastics are becoming a major pollutant. According to the plastic industries figures, around 359 million tons of plastic was manufactured globally in 2018 (up from 334 million tons in 2016) [3], of which 60 million tons were produced in Europe. Mattsson et al. (2015) estimate that around 10% of all plastic produced is lost to the sea each year [4]. A 2010 estimation suggests between 4.8-12.7 million tons of plastic entered the oceans from coastal and terrestrial areas, with up to 92% of this being <4.75mm in size [5].

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Section: Atmospheric Microplasticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Atmospheric Microplasticmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics

et al. 2020

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“…Two interesting review articles from Chen et al [62] and Zhang et al [63] (2020) have focused their attention on the occurrence and abundance of MP in the urban environment, with particular emphasis on the sampling methodology, sample purification and analysis. They both sum up the recent studies in urban and remote environments, reporting that the majority of MP in cities (Paris (France), Dongguan, Shanghai, Yantai (China) and Nottingham (UK)) are represented by fibers.…”

Section: Occurrence Of Microplastics In the Atmospheric Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric Micro and Nanoplastics: An Enormous Microscopic Problem

Bianco

Passananti

2020

Sustainability

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Atmospheric plastic pollution is now a global problem. Microplastics (MP) have been detected in urban atmospheres as well as in remote and pristine environments, showing that suspension, deposition and aeolian transport of MP should be included and considered as a major transport pathway in the plastic life cycle. This work reports an up to date review of the experimental estimation of deposition rate of MP in rural and urban environment, also analyzing the correlation with meteorological factors. Due to the limitations in sampling and instrumental methodology, little is known about MP and nanoplastics (NP) with sizes lower than 50 µm. In this review, we describe how NP could be transported for longer distances than MP, making them globally present and potentially more concentrated than MP. We highlight that it is crucial to explore new methodologies to collect and analyze NP. Future research should focus on the development of new technologies, combining the existent knowledge on nanomaterial and atmospheric particle analysis.

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“…Transport of TWPs and BWPs via runoff and wash-out to marine and/or freshwater ecosystems has been studied 31 , 32 . However, very little is known about their dispersion in the atmosphere 33 – 35 and where they are deposited, despite their health impacts in animals 9 – 11 , 36 and humans 12 , 37 , possibly enhanced by adsorbed toxic organic compounds and heavy metals 38 . Greater use of plastics results in more extensive consumption of fossil fuels and, in turn, in larger emissions of greenhouse gases 39 such as methane and ethylene 40 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of microplastics to remote regions

et al. 2020

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In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPstire wear particles and BWPsbrake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiencies of these particles to remote regions. About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (100 kt yr −1 and 40 kt yr −1 respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr −1). We suggest that the Arctic may be a particularly sensitive receptor region, where the light-absorbing properties of TWPs and BWPs may also cause accelerated warming and melting of the cryosphere.

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Atmospheric microplastics: A review on current status and perspectives

Cited by 722 publications

References 86 publications

Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics

Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics

Atmospheric Micro and Nanoplastics: An Enormous Microscopic Problem

Atmospheric transport is a major pathway of microplastics to remote regions

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