Plastic clouds found hovering over two major Chinese cities shock scientists

Two major Chinese cities are sitting under clouds of plastic, a study has found, revealing that plastic is present in enormous amounts in the air. Guangzhou and Xi’an have such a massive cover of microplastics over them that they are now triggering the formation of clouds. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences tracked microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) in the Earth’s atmosphere above these cities and were shocked by the findings. They noted in the study published in the journal Science Advances that the total suspended particulates and dustfall fluxes were two to six times higher than previous estimates reached using visual-based analytical methods. This shows that plastic pollution is way higher than what was known. “Over the past two decades, plastic as an emerging pollutant has become a global issue because of its widespread distribution in every environmental compartment of the Earth system,” the study authors wrote. The team developed a microanalytical method using a computer-controlled scanning electron microscopy system, as opposed to the visual-based analytical methods.

Plastics could rain down and spread to other areas

The study, reported by The Independent, states that even when the wind conditions are stable, traffic acts as a potentially major source of atmospheric MPs and NPs. Road dust is continuously re-suspended into the atmosphere, and the plastic particles can hang onto the environment for a long time because of their small size. Their presence for extended periods in the atmosphere also triggers cloud formation. When they rain down, the plastic particles are distributed to areas where they weren't originally released. So, along with road dust, rain also acts as a way of spreading it to distant places. “Using an innovative method capable of detecting plastic particles as small as 200 nanometers, we quantified MPs and NPs in aerosols, dry and wet deposition, and resuspension in two Chinese megacities, Guangzhou and Xi’an,” the researchers wrote in the study.

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The study does not state whether these plastic particles are transforming the global climate in any major way; it stresses that they are a dominant force in cloud formation. The study offers an insight into MPs and NPs in urban atmospheric processes and their potential implications for climate, ecosystems, and human health. Microplastics have reached the oceans, our food and even organs in the human body. But their activity and presence in the atmosphere remain the least understood.