New study: Rainfall causes microplastic transport into the atmosphere

Oceans, lakes and rivers often contain a large number of microplastic particles on their surface. Impacting raindrops cause many droplets with an almost equally high concentration of microplastics to be thrown up into the air. When they evaporate in the air, the particles enter the atmosphere. Researchers from the CRC Microplastics at UBT describe these processes in a recently published study. In an initial estimate, which is still fraught with uncertainty in several respects, they come to the conclusion that, worldwide, up to 100 trillion microplastic particles could enter the atmosphere every year as a result of rainfall.