Nearly 74 MT of microplastics rained in New Zealand during 2020: Study

The peer-reviewed study is the first to calculate the total mass of microplastics in a city's air, and it suggests researchers may be dramatically undercounting the global airborne microplastics count

Some 74 metric tons of microplastics dropped out of the atmosphere onto the New Zealand city of Auckland in 2020, according to a study published this week in Environmental Science & Technology — the equivalent of 3 million plastic bottles.  
 

The peer-reviewed study is the first to calculate the total mass of microplastics in a city’s air, and its findings suggest researchers may be dramatically undercounting the global prevalence of airborne microplastics.

To conduct the study, scientists from the University of Auckland collected microplastics falling on a rooftop of their downtown campus as well as on a residential garden in