Plastic rain

0:00It's summertime. Happy summertime. And maybe you're not totally happy because of that one war, or that other war, or your concerns over our trade war, or maybe you're worried about some new war. But at least we've got summer and the sun. Or where I live in D.C., we've got rain and sun. Summer in D.C. means lots and lots of rain, just like earth-shattering thunderstorms that break when the humidity builds and builds and builds, and the skies just can't take it anymore. And it turns out there's plastic in that rain? Not like big chunks of plastic. Our old arch-nemesis microplastics are in the rain.

0:43And earlier this year, we explained, and today we're going to revisit that explanation.

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2:01i just want to say one word to you just one word yes sir are you listening yes sir today explained sean romsford here with benji jones environmental correspondent at vox and benji's here to talk about a piece he wrote for vox on plastic rain but before we get there benji you know regular listeners of the show will be familiar with microplastics but for all the irregulars out there. Could you just remind them what they are? Sean, it's in the name, micro. It's just right. It's that easy. No, yeah. Basically, it is really tiny bits of plastic. Technically speaking, we're talking about plastic pieces that are less than five millimeters long on their longest side.

2:44So it's like half a centimeter, not necessarily invisible, but you can get much, much, much smaller and into another category called nanoplastics, which are less than one micrometer, which is a millionth of a meter or a thousandth of a millimeter. So they can get very, very, very small. Basically, everywhere scientists look on this planet, in our bodies, in animal bodies, we find microplastics. So they are truly, absolutely everywhere. And these are like plastic fibers. So the fibers that make up your nylon or polyester jackets or t-shirts, they could be broken down pieces of water bottles that have been crushed on highways.

3:23They could be nurdles, which are like these little pellets that are used to make other things out of plastic. They're like the virgin material used to make plastic. So they're like, they're just all over the place. And that includes in our rain. Yeah. Which I didn't know until I read your piece. Yeah. So like, on the one hand, microplastics are absolutely everywhere. So like, the fact that it's in the rain is maybe not as surprising. But to me, when I was learning about plastic rain, that there is plastic in our rain, it was really shocking to me because it suggests that like plastic is part of our ecosystems.

3:58It is like as fundamental at this point as like microbes and bacteria. It's just like part of the world that we live in, part of the fiber of the planet. And that to me is quite scary and like another level. And when you say that it's in our rain, can you just help us understand what exactly that looks like? I mean, can you literally see it? More often than not, you can't see it. So these are really, really small particles of plastic. And that's because in order for microplastics to get into the rain, they have to be transported by the air. They have to be in the air. And so all these sort of invisible pieces of plastic are in the rain, falling down.

4:36And there are a handful of studies that have found plastic in rainfall all over the world and in some kind of scary quantities, too. Hmm. Like, how much? Yeah, so the study that I was like, okay, I need to write about this, was a study of rain and dust falling on national parks and wilderness areas in the West. These are like Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree. And these researchers found that the amount of plastic that was falling on these national parks and wilderness areas every year is equivalent to like 120 to 300 million plastic water bottles every year. So like, you see trash when you're hiking through the wilderness, but like, there's actually trash like falling from the sky and it is probably more than the physical pieces that you can actually see.

5:27It's just like everywhere. Everywhere, like, does that mean there's microplastics in the rain in Detroit, Timbuktu, Fiji? Like, is there no place on Earth where you won't encounter microplastics in the rain? Or is it, you know, closer to polluted spaces, closer to cities, whatever it might be? Yeah, it's really everywhere. I mean, Sean, it's in the French Pyrenees. Like, it's in snowfall in the, like, Alps. Like, it is just because there is microplastic in the air, it's able to get all over the world. And so I saw studies in China, India, Europe, there are microplastics in the ocean, like tens if not hundreds of trillions of plastic particles, beach sand all around the world, seafood, which is like, again, it's in the ocean, so it's in our fish, it's in our homes, it's in the carpets, plastic fibers, etc.

6:20etc. It's in snow in Antarctica. It's in sea ice. It's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. One of my favorite studies, but also kind of sad, scientists looked at dolphin breaths, like the size of dolphins, and found microplastics in the breath of these dolphins. So like dolphins are breathing out microplastics. This is a microplastic fiber found in dolphin breath, and it's 14 times smaller than a human hair. We found it by holding a petri dish over dolphins blowholes so we can analyze what they breathe out. Dolphins are top predators in marine ecosystems, so scientists use them as a way of monitoring the effects of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems and coastal communities.

6:58Ocean waves are basically plastic confetti machines, and they can launch 100 ,000 metric tons of plastic into the air every year. And then it's also everywhere that we've looked in the human body. So it's in our blood, it's in our kidneys, it's in our semen, the placenta, and in the human body, we're finding microplastics that are so small, these nanoplastics, that they're actually able to cross the blood-brain barrier. I mean, one of the big news stories of this year was that scientists found a plastic spoon's worth of microplastics in the human brain, like in an average brain by weight, which is terrifying to think about.

7:35New research at the University of New Mexico finds alarmingly high levels of that plastic in human brains at much higher concentrations compared to the liver and kidney. They looked at some individuals with dementia. They had higher levels of microplastics in the brain. According to researchers, the amount of microplastics in analyzed brains rose by about 50 percent from 2016 to 2024. This study found that like 99.5 percent of our brain is brain and the rest is plastic. So like 0.5 percent of our brain is plastic, which is another way to think about the spoon and scary. And it's also like more plastic currently than it was in the past.

8:13So like that indicates that with the rise of plastic in the environment, we're seeing a rise of plastic in our heads. So that's great. Sorry, I didn't hear anything you said. I think I had a seizure from all the plastic in my brain. And where exactly is it coming from?

8:30So there's a lot of trash on the side of roads that gets run over by car after car and then it gets ground up into little pieces. They become airborne and then they get transported everywhere and rained out. You can also have plastic in the ocean getting all the way inland and being rained out on land. We know there is a lot of plastic in the ocean, including a lot of microplastics. And even when like bubbles on the surface are popping, they're like flinging microplastics into the air. And also when waves are crashing on the shore, they're causing the microplastics to like become airborne. So the oceans are a big source.

9:01The highways are a big source. Also tires are a big producer of microplastics as they wear down. So like just the tires degrading over time can put microplastics into the air. And it's not just plastic that's in our rain. It's actually other chemicals like PFAS. So a bunch of studies have also found these forever chemicals in the rain too. So our rain is like quite dirty. And just for the people out there who are maybe like, yeah, there's plastic in the rain, whatever, there's plastic in my bed, there's plastic in my brain. Why do we not want plastic in the rain, Benji? Yeah, this is like the most important question in my mind is like, is there an actual risk to being exposed to all this plastic that it has many benefits, right?

9:41Like we benefit from plastic. We're talking on devices made of plastic right now. It's light, it makes cars less polluting, etc. scientists are learning that microplastics in our bodies, which could get there because of what we're drinking and what we're eating, are linked to a number of health concerns like cardiovascular disease, mental issues like dementia. So there is actually quite a long list of health problems that are linked to exposure to microplastics. Could it be increasing the risk of stroke or heart attack? Could it be increasing the risk of cancer? Inflammatory bowel disease, infertility.

10:15So there are any number of things. Preterm birth. It is thought that it can disrupt your hormones, so it can cause some fertility issues, it can mess with your metabolism, and it can cause neurological issues. Part of that is just the physical bit of plastic being in your body. It's like this foreign substance that your body is trying to get rid of, and so it's going to have an inflammatory response, which can be bad over time. But also, there are a lot of chemicals. There are like hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals used in plastics. And those chemicals like phthalates, which make plastic bendy, are also associated with other issues like hormone disruption and fertility issues.

10:52So, yeah, I would say it is pretty fair to say that there are health problems linked to all this exposure. That personally makes me worried. Personally, but you're also worried for like your fellow human. Oh, I don't care about anybody else. Yeah, I am worried. And like, we do have chronic illness problems in the US in countries all over the world. Like we know that chronic disease is getting worse over time in terms of like, how many people have it. And I think that we should be looking at things like the spread of microplastics. Well, Benji, is there anything we can do about it? Yeah. So I mean, it's really easy to just feel kind of hopeless.

11:33And I do at times personally, but I like to look back at history and other environmental problems that we actually solved. So there are examples of problems, so like the ozone layer, that big giant hole in the ozone that was letting all this harmful solar radiation in. We like are on track to close that through regulations. And then more relevant to this conversation is acid rain. So like in the 60s, 70s and 80s, acid rain was a huge environmental problem talked about by, like, congressmen, the public, etc. And we pretty much fixed that. I mean, it's not fixed everywhere, but, like, you don't really hear about acid rain anymore, and that's because it doesn't really exist, especially in the developed world.

12:19Let's drop some acid when we return on Today Explained. Fun.

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16:36Plastic rain. Have you seen the plastic rain? Plastic rain. Plastic rain. Today, explain back with Benji Jones, who's going to tell us how we fixed acid rain. Is that what we did, Benji? Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and say we have mostly fixed acid rain. Huh. And remind us what the problem was. Okay, so acid rain, rain that is slightly acidic, like several times more acidic than regular rain. probably not like pure lemon juice, but maybe like lemonade or something slightly diluted. And the rain was largely acidic because of a handful of gases. So sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which is nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide.

17:19And these were gases largely emitted by coal power plants and the tailpipes of cars. In our time, acid rain has become a subject of international concern and scientific research. Acid rain looks, feels, and smells like any other rain. But the water in acid rain carries poisons like sulfuric acid. That acid and its effects have been blamed for killing fish and plant life in hundreds of lakes in the northeastern United States and Canada. Our Canadian neighbors to the north are becoming impatient to a point where U.S.-Canada relations are more strained than ever. At the center of the serotin is the acid rain problem, one that has no respect for international boundaries.

18:01And as all this acidic rain was falling, we started to see impacts from that. So like, I don't know, maybe you've seen the photos of statues that look like they're kind of melted. But we also saw like forests starting to collapse, fish die in lakes in the Adirondacks. So it was like a human problem and an environmental problem. And then we did something about it? Yes, we did. The U.S. in 1990 passed amendments to the Clean Air Act, which is like the seminal regulation in the U.S. to clean up the air that started to limit the amount of sulfur dioxide that coal power plants were able to produce.

18:37This bill will cut emissions that cause acid rain in half and permanently cap them at these new levels. And also around the same time, catalytic converters were becoming a big thing. Those reduce emissions in tailpipes. And so you started to see these regulations limiting the amount of pollution coming from these important sources like coal and cars. And as a result, we saw acid rain start to decline. Huh. Did anyone like celebrate it? Was there like a day where we said we did it, guys? We beat acid rain? I didn't come across anyone being like, congratulations, we fixed this. I think like when regulations work, they don't maybe get the attention they deserve.

19:16Let's take a moment now on the show to just celebrate that we, at least for now, managed to beat acid rain. But I should also just say, so like some places like China. Oh, no, are you going to caveat it? Oh, always. Come on. Okay, great. There are some places around the world that still have a lot of coal energy, like China and India, and you will still see acid rain there. I actually saw a headline about the Taj Mahal being affected by acid rain eroding the surface of the Taj Mahal. So some parts of the world still deal with slightly acidic rain because they have emissions from these fossil fuels.

19:55But in general, especially in wealthier parts of the world, we are not getting rained on by acid, which is great. I mean, no biggie. There was like another Taj Mahal in New Jersey at some point. Right. They'll just make another one. Amidst great hoopla this week, Donald Trump is opening his one billion dollar Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Some economists call it a reckless gamble. Can we apply any of the learnings from how we, at least in some places in the world, defeated acid rain to this plastic rain, plastic rain situation we've got currently all over the world? Yeah, okay. Great question.

20:34So I think in some ways the plastic problem is worse because plastic stays around forever, like decades, centuries, really hard to get rid of once it's in the environment. PFAS, same story. but but but and this is my rare bout of hope which is that we learned from acid rain from the ozone hole that when we as a as a species humans governments want to solve a problem want to solve an environmental problem we do it there was public outcry around acid rain we fixed it largely and so i think that is a lesson in like this is a question about will do we have the will to get rid of plastics and do we have the regulations in place to do so and that is the other kind of important takeaway, which is that when you have major industries that are benefiting from this incredible amount of plastic flowing into the environment, we need to often create regulations that are tamping down on that supply of plastic.

21:32Do we have any of those? Well, I don't think folks who follow the plastic conversation closely are very hopeful about the current administration.

21:46As you may have seen, Trump is trying to bring back plastic straws. Oh, yeah. We're going back to plastic straws. These things don't work. He seems to be passionately against paper straws, which, like, okay, there's some merit to that. I've had them many times, and on occasion, they break, they explode. If something's hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It's a ridiculous situation. Though that one seems to have unified left and right. He is right on this one.

22:20Those straws are f***ing terrible. Yeah, it is true. I mean, no one wants that dissolving paper straw. I think it's overblown. Personally, I've had, like, compostable straws that work just fine, I want to say. But you're also famously anti-plastic. Famously. Everyone knows about that. Wah, wah, wah. I hate plastic. Wah. Anyway, so, like, right. Are we going to see regulations in this administration to start limiting plastic when the president is so pro-oil and gas, which is the same industry as the plastic industry? We will drill, baby, drill. I think probably not. I will say, though, and this is something fairly hopeful, there is a global effort right now to create a plastic treaty involving over 100 countries.

23:07So countries around the world are trying to create a global agreement to reduce plastic waste. That could include things like a cap on the production of plastic, bans on certain types of single-use plastics, and also best practices for companies that are producing plastic for end-of-life, so like better recycling and so forth. So there are efforts at the global scale to fix the plastic problem. They're ongoing. There's like some roadblocks, but it's happening. And so I think that is something that is worth celebrating should it come to pass. Okay, so you're saying fixing the plastic rain problem is really just fixing the plastic problem.

23:40But then you were also saying that, like, it's in our tires and the tires are on the road and it's just constantly getting in the air. That just feels, like, unwieldy. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a situation where, like, we need to focus on getting rid of the plastics that are not as essential. Like, we can acknowledge the fact that tires are useful. I mean, we can probably make tires that are not, like, wearing away and filling the air with microplastics. but like in general, tire is good. I think like getting plastic cutlery with takeout every time, probably pretty easy to get rid of. Like we don't really need plastic straws.

24:17Like use seaweed or whatever the f*** to make straws not disintegrate. It's fine. Like we are innovative. We don't need to be, this is not a problem. So I think being clear about what the like priority plastics are that we should get rid of is a way to like make this problem not seem so overwhelming. You know, Benji, a former colleague of ours, Jerusalem Demsis, I saw recently on our cursed shared social media platform, she wrote something like, I need everyone to stop talking to me about microplastics. I don't care. Do you think at all it's hard to care about the microplastics that are evaporating into the air?