Scientists have recently discovered, in the uninhabited Pyrenees in southern France, rains brought microparticles from the sea, accumulating on clouds and falling into this land. . It is a direct consequence of people abusing the use of plastic in everyday life and discharging them into the environment. They discovered that every square meter in the Pyrenees measured 365 plastic micro-particles dropped by rainwater.
Deonie Allen, a researcher at EcoLab of the University of Agriculture and Life Technology in Toulouse, France, said: 'It's terrible to think about the amount of plastic falling and permanently staying in the Pyrenees. Plastic micro particles should be considered a new form of air pollution '. The reason is that micro-plastic particles are naturally circulated by the atmosphere in the atmosphere, evaporate from the sea, become clouds and create rain to bring to the Pyrenees, because within 100km radius, scientists do not see Notable sources of plastic waste can find their way to the high mountains of 3 thousand meters above this sea level.
Previously, only two studies on micro-plastic particles were suspended in the air, and they were all done in big cities, the results were similar when there was a lot of human waste generated. different from finding plastic beads in remote mountainous areas in France. Now it may be concluded, plastic particles are everywhere: 'If you go out on the street with a UV lamp, set the wavelength for the lamp at 400 nanometers, when you look at the light you can see all those plastic particles and dust in the air. In the house they can also be denser. Sounds pretty scary '.
Allen and her colleagues collected plastic microparticles for 5 months on a meteorological station at 1,400 meters above sea level, using a plastic air-retention system like a funnel. They then began to count and classify plastic particles smaller than 300 microns (0.3 mm). More than half of them, according to scientists, are smaller than 25 microns, which is about half the diameter of a human hair.
Later, researchers began to understand the direction of the wind to find the origin of plastic beads in the Pyrenees. Within a radius of 100km, there are only individual farmers, no large industrial zones.
Scientists for years have warned that people are creating a plastic planet. In 2015, people discharged into the environment 420 million tons of plastic waste. This figure in 1950 was only 2 million tons. In those 65 years, 6 billion tons of plastic garbage has returned to the environment, entered the seabed or been collected at large-scale landfills, according to a study in 2017. Starting from producing plastic bottles , nylon bags or man-made plastic packaging gradually degrade over time to form micron-sized or nanometer-sized plastic beads. A study estimated on the surface of the sea currently has about 15 to 51 trillion micro-plastic particles.
The fact that people have been able to reload plastic microbes that they emit into the environment through food, water and air has been proven, but the health consequences have not been thoroughly studied. Microparticles smaller than 25 microns can enter the body through the respiratory tract, while particles smaller than 5 microns can remain in human lung tissue. Certainly they cause adverse health consequences, but how do not have specific scientific research.
Meanwhile, burning fossil fuels like coal also creates toxic gases that cause heart attacks, asthma, affecting children's memory and IQ. Most countries have their own air pollution standards to minimize the amount of fine dust that is below 10 microns and 2.5 microns in the air. You often know this standard with the name PM 10 and PM 2.5.
That's the plastic particles suspended in the air, but we haven't talked about nanometer-sized plastic particles. A needle tip may contain one billion plastic particles at this size.
Roman Lehner of the University of Friborg, Switzerland, said: ' Don't be surprised to know that microparticles are everywhere'. Nanoparticle itself is the same, but human technology has not yet identified them effectively. These microparticles have different physicochemical properties compared to higher-sized microparticles. One of them is because of their small size, they are more likely to react chemically than micro-plastic particles, and thus may pose a higher risk to the human body.
Experiments have shown that nanoparticles can penetrate cell walls to enter the fish's body and many other marine species. In the same way, scientists have discovered that nanoparticles can pass through the digestive system and into the human body. Although studies on the impact of plastic particles on human health will need to be further implemented, one thing is clear, the use of packaging and plastic products must be reduced immediately. instantly.