Microplastics are all around us, even if we can’t see them. This week, the Possibly team investigates where they come from and why sometimes, they’re even made on purpose.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
We’ve talked about microplastics on the show before — but where are these little pieces of plastic coming from? We had Will Malloy and Nat Hardy from our Possibly team find out more.
Will Malloy: Hi Megan!
Nat Hardy: Hello!
Megan Hall: So, just to start, what exactly are microplastics?
Will Malloy: Just what they sound like — tiny pieces of plastic, ranging from smaller than a red blood cell to about the size of a grain of rice.
Nat Hardy: And they have ended up pretty much everywhere on Earth.
Sherri Mason: It doesn’t matter where we’ve looked, we find microplastics. So from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Will Malloy: That was Dr. Sherri Mason — she’s a professor at Gannon University, where she studies plastic pollution.
Nat Hardy: She told us that microplastics are created in two different ways.
Will Malloy: The first kind are microplastics that are intentionally manufactured.
Megan Hall: People make them on purpose?
Nat Hardy: Remember, microplastics can be as big as a few millimeters– so that includes things like glitter or small beads.
Will Malloy: Also, most larger plastic products are made out of tiny plastic pellets called “nurdles.”
Sherri Mason: This is actually the starting point of plastics. These little plastic pellets, that is what is shipped from a refinery where plastics are initially produced to a company that makes plastic products.
Nat Hardy: In order to make something like a water bottle, manufacturers start with these pre-made nurdles.
Will Malloy: And all throughout the process, as they are moved around…
Sherri Mason: You will have hundreds, if not 1000s, of nurdles that get released. And I know this because I see it.
Nat Hardy: It can get really bad when there’s an accident.
Will Malloy: In 2021, a cargo ship caught fire off the coast of Sri Lanka, and spilled billions of nurdles into the ocean. They are really hard to clean up and the ocean currents can carry them far.
Megan Hall: So that’s one way microplastics are created — when we make them. But you said there’s another way, right?
Nat Hardy: Yeah, and these are probably what you think of when you think about microplastics — little pieces that are formed unintentionally when larger plastic products break into smaller pieces.
Will Malloy: This kind is way more common and they truly come from everywhere — washing synthetic fabrics sheds fibres, driving causes tires to erode and leave behind particles, and fishing nets in the ocean leave a trail of plastic in the water.
Sherri Mason: Any piece of plastic as it has these physical processes that act on it will be releasing microplastics. So just the simple act of twisting off a cap from a plastic bottle of water can shed microplastics into the beverage that you’re about to drink.
Nat Hardy: That means they get into the water, the air, our food, and our bodies.
Megan Hall: So, do microplastics ever go away?
Will Malloy: That’s the thing — not really. On the smallest level, plastics are made up of long chains of molecules held together with chemical bonds.
Nat Hardy: These kinds of chains and bonds don’t really exist in nature, so microorganisms aren’t very good at decomposing them.
Will Malloy: There are some microbes that can do it, but they aren’t very common. Mostly, plastics just get smaller and smaller, but they still stick around.
Sherri Mason: It is not uncommon to hear plastic pollution researchers say that, you know, most plastic that has ever been created is still on this planet somewhere.
Will Malloy: Once they get into our ecosystems, it’s really hard to get them out.
Megan Hall: Is there any way to stop them from polluting our world?
Nat Hardy: There’s no easy fix. The only real way to stop microplastics is to phase out plastic.
Sherri Mason: You know, we had society before plastic. We can have society without plastic, and we can certainly have society with a lot less plastic.
Will Malloy: At the same time, though, plastic is light and strong, which makes it very useful. So eliminating plastic also comes with tradeoffs. That’s a conversation for another episode.
Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks Will and Nat!
That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at “askpossibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media
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