Atmospheric Transport, a Major Pathway of Microplastics to Remote Regions

Abstract

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 the first global simulation of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPs – tire wear particles and BWPs – brake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiency of these particles to remote regions, such as the Arctic Ocean (14%). 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 terrestrial and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr-1). Atmospheric transport of microplastics is thus an underestimated threat to global terrestrial and marine ecosystems and affects air quality on a global scale, especially considering that other large but highly uncertain emissions of microplastics to the atmosphere exist. High latitudes and the Arctic are highlighted as an important receptor of mid-latitude emissions of road microplastics, which may imply a future climatic risk, considering their affinity to absorb solar radiation and accelerate melting.

Microplastics in Honey, Beer, Milk and Refreshments in Ecuador as Emerging Contaminants

“…The great part of microplastic contamination responds to the atmospheric contribution in the productive processes [24,42,45]. Air currents transport large amounts of microparticles from the places of high contamination that end up in food, even more so when atmospheric contamination is not a controlling factor in industrial production.…”

“…To assess the incidence of microplastics, different researchers studied honey, beer and table salt in Europe and China. Bottled and tap water was assessed on all continents by an American research group, who demonstrated that the presence of plastic can begin to compete with greenhouse gases in terms of ubiquity and impact on environmental deterioration [24].…”

Microplastics in glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau: Evidence for the long-range transport of microplastics

“…Recently, abundant MPs have been detected from the supraglacial debris of the Forni Glacier (Italian Alps) (Ambrosini et al, 2019), European and Arctic snow (Bergmann et al, 2019), and precipitation in the protected areas of the United States (Brahney et al, 2020). These results suggest that atmospheric long-range transport (or airborne pathways) and deposition can be a significant and nonnegligible pathway for MPs in the environment (Evangeliou et al, 2020;Hale et al, 2020;Wright et al, 2020).…”

“…It is surrounded by regions dominated by the production of plastics (China and other Asian countries) and the dismantling of commercial ships (South Asia, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan) (PlasticEurope, 2019). The recognition of MP pollution in the remote area of the TP might be an important scientific issue and a relevant topic in addressing the global plastic cycle (Allen et al, 2019;Evangeliou et al, 2020;Bank and Hansson, 2019). However, studies on MPs in high-altitude glaciers of this remote area have not been reported yet.…”

“…It has been estimated that long-range transport accounted for more than 1000 metric tons of plastic deposition on protected areas in the Western United States annually (Brahney et al, 2020). Wind transfer could deposit 7-34% of primary or waste MPs into the oceans (Boucher and Friot, 2017;Evangeliou et al, 2020), and a proportion of oceanic MPs can also be transported as atmospheric MPs (Allen et al, 2020).…”