Microplastics thrown into the air by road transport could pollute the oceans as much as those from rivers, according to models published on Tuesday. Many researchers have identified the presence of microplastics in all their forms in the four corners of the ocean, to the bottom of the Marianas pit, the deepest known, and on earth, to the highest glaciers.
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As plastic production continues to grow, a new study published in Nature Communications attempts for the first time to estimate the amount of plastic from road traffic (tire friction on the road and use of brakes) then dispersed in air and redeposited elsewhere thanks to atmospheric currents.
The researchers evaluated the quantity of these particles derived from the petroleum industry (ethylene, propylene) produced by road transport, combined with simulations of atmospheric circulation.
According to them, a third of these aerial microplastics from the road (around 50,000 tonnes, with a range of uncertainty between 40,000 and 100,000 tonnes) end up in the ocean each year, compared to 65,000 tonnes of microplastics dumped into the sea by rivers. . Even if they note a lack of field data that can validate their models.
According to the study, a significant part of this pollution, transported by air, is likely to end its course in the Arctic, where the colored particles which absorb more rays of the sun than white snow, could have an impact on the melting of ice cream.