Today, Explained - Plastic rain, plastic rain

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

We (mostly) got rid of acid rain, but now there’s another scary thing falling from the sky. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Victoria Chamberlin, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Further reading: We got rid of acid rain. Now something scarier is falling from the sky. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's springtime. Happy springtime. Maybe your 401k is looking more like an FMLK. Maybe you're putting those plans to buy a house or a condo on hold. Maybe you're worried about a recession. I certainly am. But at least we've got springtime, you guys. You ever got in the rain in the springtime? Feel a little sense of renewal? Humor? All the possibilities ahead? Tilt your head back. Close your eyes Andy Dufresne style. Maybe even open your mouth and take in a few drops of that high quality H2O. Maybe don't do that. It turns out there's plastic in that rain. Not like big

chunks of plastic. Our old arch nemesis microplastics are in the rain and we are going to explain. Hey there a little bit of news before we start today's news show. News you can use. You can now listen to Today Explained without listening to any ads. In order to do this, you just need to become a Vox member. When you become a member, you're going to be supporting the work that we do on Today Explained. And you'll also get unlimited access to Vox.com. Just go to Vox.com slash members to sign up. Scientists find weird kinds of life all the time. And normally they can run experiments. If I hypothesize life can live in bleach, well I can get bleach and see if life lives in it.

But what if the weird thing about the life they find is that it lives for millions of years. Time. I don't have any control over that. I can literally do nothing with time. This week on Unexplainable, Intra-Terrestrials. Aliens on Earth, deep beneath the seafloor. Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Wednesday. I just want to say one word to you. Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Wednesday.

I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Yes sir. Are you listening? Yes sir, yeah. Today explained Sean Romm's firm here with Benji Jones, environmental correspondent at Vox. And Benji's here to talk about a piece he wrote for Vox on plastic rain. But before we get there, Benji, you know, regular listeners of the show will be familiar with microplastics, but for all the irregulars out there, could you just remind them what they are?

Sean is in the name, micro. It's just right, it's that easy. No, yeah, basically it is really tiny bits of plastic. Technically speaking, we're talking about plastic pieces that are less than five millimeters long on like their longest side. So it's like half a centimeter, not necessarily invisible, but you can get much, much, much smaller and into like another category called nanoplastics, which are less than one micrometer, which is a millionth of a meter or a thousandth of a millimeter. So like they can get very, very, very small. Basically everywhere scientists look on this planet in our bodies, in animal bodies,

we find microplastics. So they are truly absolutely everywhere. And these are like plastic fibers. So like the fibers that make up your nylon or polyester jackets or t-shirts, they could be broken down pieces of water bottles that have been crushed on highways. They could be nurdles, which are like these little pellets that are used to make other things out of plastic. They're like the virgin material used to make plastic. So they're like, they're just all over the place.

And that includes in our rain. Yeah. Which I didn't know until I read your piece. Yeah, so like on the one hand, microplastics are absolutely everywhere, so like, the fact that it's in the rain is maybe not as surprising, but to me, when I was learning about plastic rain, that there is plastic in our rain, it was really shocking to me because it suggests that like, plastic is part of our ecosystems.

It is like, as fundamental at this point as like microbes and bacteria. It's just like part of the world that we live in, part of the fiber of the planet, and that to me is quite scary and like another level. And when you say that it's in our rain, can you just help us understand what exactly that looks like? I mean, can you literally see it? More often than not, you can't see it.

So these are really, really small particles of plastic. And that's because in order for microplastics to get into the rain, they have to be transported by the air. They have to be in the air. And so all these sort of invisible pieces of plastic are in the rain falling down. And there are a handful of studies that have found plastic in rainfall all over the world, and in some kind of scary quantities too. Hmm.

Like, how much? Yeah. So, the study that I was like, okay, I need to write about this, was a study of rain and dust falling on national parks and wilderness areas in the West. These are like Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree. And these researchers found that the amount of plastic that was falling on these national parks and wilderness areas every year is equivalent to like 120 to 300 million plastic water bottles every year. So like, you see trash when you're hiking through the wilderness,

but like there's actually trash like falling from the sky and it is probably more than the physical pieces that you can actually see. It's just like everywhere. Like, is there no place on Earth where you won't encounter microplastics in the rain? Or is it, you know, closer to polluted spaces, closer to cities, whatever it might be? Yeah, it's really everywhere. I mean, Sean, it's in the French Pyrenees. Like, it's in snowfall in the Alps. Like, it is just because there is microplastic in the air, it's able to get all over the world. And so I saw studies in China, India, Europe, there are microplastics in the ocean, like tens if not hundreds of trillions of plastic particles, beach sand all around the world,

seafood, which is like, again, it's in the ocean. So it's in our fish, it's in our homes, it's in the carpets, plastic fibers, et cetera. It's in snow in Antarctica, it's in our homes, it's in the carpets, plastic fibers, et cetera. It's in snow in Antarctica. It's in sea ice. It's at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. One of my favorite studies but also kind of sad, scientists looked at dolphin breaths, like the size of dolphins and found microplastics in the breath of these dolphins. So like dolphins are breathing out microplastics. This is a microplastic fiber found in dolphin breath and it's 14 times smaller than a human hair. We found it by holding a petri dish over dolphins' blowholes so we can analyze what they breathe out. Dolphins are top

predators in marine ecosystems so scientists use them as a way of monitoring the effects of plastic pollution on marine ecosystems and coastal communities. Ocean waves are basically plastic confetti machines and they can launch a,000 metric tons of plastic into the air every year. And then it's also everywhere that we've looked in the human body. So it's in our blood, it's in our kidneys, it's in our semen, the placenta, and in the human body, we're finding microplastics that are so small, these nanoplastics that they're actually able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

I mean, one of the big news stories of this year was that scientists found a plastic spoon's worth of microplastics in the human brain, like in an average brain by weight, which is like terrifying to think about. New research at the University of New Mexico finds alarmingly high levels of that plastic in human brains at much higher concentrations compared to the liver and kidney. They looked at some individuals with dementia, they had higher levels of microplastics in the brain. According to researchers, the amount of microplastics in analyzed brains rose by about 50% from

2016 to 2024. This study found that like 99.5% of our brain is brain and the rest is plastic. So like 0.5% of our brain is plastic, which is another way to think about the spoon and scary. And it's also like more plastic currently than it was in the past. So like that indicates that with the rise of plastic in the environment, we're seeing a rise of plastic in our heads. So that's great.

Sorry, I didn't hear anything you said. I think I had a seizure from all the plastic in the environment, we're seeing a rise of plastic in our heads. So that's great. Sorry, I didn't hear anything you said. I think I had a seizure from all the plastic in my brain. And where exactly is it coming from? So there's a lot of trash on the side of roads that gets run over by car after car, and then it gets ground up into little pieces. They become airborne and then they get transported everywhere and rained out. You can also have plastic in the ocean getting all the way inland and being rained out on land. We know there is a lot of plastic in the ocean

including a lot of microplastics and even when like bubbles on the surface are popping they're like flinging microplastics into the air and also when waves are crashing on the shore they're causing the microplastics to like become airborne. So the oceans are a big source. The highways are a big source. Also tires are a big producer of microplastics as they wear down. So like just the tires degrading over time can put microplastics into the air. And it's not just plastic that's in our rain. It's actually other chemicals like PFAS. So a bunch of studies have also found these forever chemicals in the rain too.

So our rain is like quite dirty. And just for the people out there who are maybe like, yeah, there's plastic in the rain too. So our rain is like quite dirty. And just for the people out there who are maybe like, yeah, there's plastic in the rain, whatever, there's plastic in my bed, there's plastic in my brain. Why do we not want plastic in the rain, Benji? Yeah, this is like the most important question in my mind is like, is there an actual risk to being exposed to all this plastic that it has many benefits, right? Like we benefit from plastic. We're talking on devices made of plastic right now. It's light, it makes cars less polluting, etc. Scientists are learning that microplastics in our bodies, which could get there because of what we're drinking and what we're eating, are linked to a number of health concerns like cardiovascular disease, mental issues, like dementia.

So like there is actually quite a long list of health problems that are linked to exposure to microplastics. Could it be increasing the risk of stroke or heart attack? Could it be increasing the risk of cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, infertility? So there are any number of things, preterm birth. It is thought that it can disrupt your hormones.

So it can cause some fertility issues, it can mess with your metabolism, and it can cause neurological issues. Part of that is just the physical bit of plastic being in your body. It's like this foreign substance that your body is trying to get rid of, and so it's going to have an inflammatory response, which can be bad over time. But also, there are a lot of chemicals.

There are hundreds, if not thousands thousands of chemicals used in plastics. And those chemicals like phthalates, which make plastic bendy are also associated with other issues like hormone disruption and fertility issues. So yeah, I would say it is pretty fair to say that there are health problems linked to all this exposure. That personally makes me worried. Personally, but you're also worried for like your fellow human.

Oh, I don't care about anybody else. Yeah, I am worried in like, we do have chronic illness problems in the US in countries all over the world. Like we know that chronic disease is getting worse over time in terms of like how many people have it. And I think that we should be looking at things like the spread of microplastics. BD Well, Benji, is there anything we can do about it? Benji Yeah, so, I mean, it's really easy to just feel kind of hopeless, and I do at times personally,

but I like to look back at history and other environmental problems that we actually solved. So there are examples of problems, so like the ozone layer, that big giant hole in the ozone that was letting all this harmful solar radiation in. We like are on track to close that through regulations. And then more relevant to this conversation is acid rain. So like in the 60s, 70s and 80s, acid rain was a huge environmental problem talked about by like congressmen, the public, etc. And we pretty much fixed that. I mean, it's not fixed everywhere, but like you don't really hear about acid rain anymore. And

that's because it doesn't really exist, especially in the developed world. Let's drop some acid when we return on Today Explained. Fun. Support for Today Explained comes from Shopify. Successful businesses can have it all. A great product, great marketers, great branding. But what about the business behind the business? For lots of companies, companies like Mattel and Magic Spoon about the business behind the business? For lots of companies, companies like Mattel and Magic Spoon, the business behind the

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Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is what you need. ["The Nintendo Switch 2 Theme Song"] The Nintendo Switch 2 is basically guaranteed to be the most interesting gadget of 2025. And we learned a lot of new stuff about it this last week or so. Some of the games that are coming out, some of the specs of the new device, and the fact that it's going to cost $449.99.

Except maybe it's not, because the other thing going on right now is tariffs. And tariffs threaten to change just about everything about tech. What it is, how it's made, where it comes from, and crucially, how much we have to pay for it. So that's what we're talking about on The Vergecast all week, wherever you get podcasts. ["Plastic Rain"] Here comes the plastic rain

Have you seen a plastic rain? Plastic rain, plastic rain. Today explained back with Benji Jones, who's gonna tell us how we fixed acid rain. Is that what we did, Benji? Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say we have mostly fixed acid rain. Huh. And remind us what the problem was. Okay, so acid rain, rain that is slightly acidic, like several times more acidic than regular rain, probably not like pure lemon juice, but maybe like lemonade or something slightly diluted.

And the rain was largely acidic because of a handful of gases. So sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, which has nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide. And these were gases largely emitted by coal power plants and the tailpipes of cars. In our time, acid rain has become a subject of international concern and scientific research. Acid rain looks, feels and smells like any other rain, but the water in acid rain carries poisons like sulfuric acid. That acid and its effects have been blamed for killing fish and plant life in hundreds

of lakes in the northeastern United States and Canada. Our Canadian neighbors to the north are becoming impatient to a point where U.S.-Canada relations are more strained than ever. At the center of this irritant is the acid rain problem, one that has no respect for international boundary. And as all this acidic rain was falling, we started to see impacts from that. So like, I don't know, maybe you've seen the photos of statues that look like they're kind of melted, but we also saw like forests starting to collapse,

fish die in lakes in the Adirondacks. So it was like a human problem and an environmental problem. And then we did something about it. Yes, we did. The US in 1990 passed amendments to the Clean Air Act, which is like the seminal regulation in the US to clean up the air that started to limit the amount of sulfur dioxide that coal power

plants were able to produce. This bill will cut emissions that cause acid rain in half and permanently cap them at these new levels. And also around the same time, catalytic converters were becoming a big thing. Those reduce emissions in tailpipes. And so you started to see these regulations limiting the amount of pollution coming from these important sources like coal and cars and as a result we saw acid rain start to decline. cars and as a result we saw acid rain start to decline. Huh. Did anyone like celebrate it? Was there like a day where we said we did it guys? We beat acid rain?

I didn't come across anyone being like congratulations we fixed this. I think like when regulations work they don't maybe get the attention they deserve. Let's take a moment now on the show to just celebrate that we, at least for now, managed to beat Acid Rain. But I should also just say, so like, some places like China... Oh no, are you gonna caveat it? Oh, always. Come on.

Okay, great. There are some places around the world that still have a lot of coal energy, like China and India, and you will still see acid rain there. I actually saw a headline about the Taj Mahal being affected by acid rain eroding the surface of the Taj Mahal. So some parts of the world still deal with slightly acidic rain because they have emissions from these fossil fuels, but in general, especially in wealthier parts of the world, we are not

getting rained on by acid, which is great. I mean, no biggie. There was like another Taj Mahal in New Jersey at some point, right? I'll just make another one. Amidst great hoopla this week, Donald Trump is opening his $1 billion Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Some economists call it a reckless gamble. Can we apply any of the learnings from how we, at least in some places in the world, defeated acid rain to this plastic rain, plastic rain situation we've got currently all over the world? Yeah, okay, great question. So I think in some ways the plastic problem is worse because plastic stays around

forever, like decades, centuries, really hard to get rid of once it's in the environment. PFAS, same story. But... But... But, and this is my rare bout of hope, which is that we learn from acid rain, from the ozone hole, that when we as a species,

humans, governments want to solve a problem, want to solve an environmental problem, we do it. There was public outcry around acid rain. We fixed it largely. And so I think that is a lesson in like, this is a question about will. Do we have the will to get rid of plastics? And do we have the regulations in place to do so?

And that is the other kind of important takeaway, which is that when you have major industries that are benefiting from this incredible amount of plastic flowing into the environment, we need to often create regulations that are tamping down on that supply of plastic. Do we have any of those? Well, I don't think folks who follow the plastic conversation closely are very hopeful about the current administration. Mmm. As you may have seen, Trump is trying to bring back plastic straws.

Oh yeah. We're going back to plastic straws. These things don't work. He seems to be passionately against paper straws, which like, okay, there's some merit to that. I've had them many times, and on occasion they break, they explode. If something's hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes. Sometimes a matter of seconds. It's a ridiculous situation. Though that one seems to have unified left and right.

He is right on this one. Those straws are f***ing terrible! It is true. I mean, no one wants that dissolving paper straw. I think it's overblown. Personally, I've had compostable straws that work just fine, I want to say. But you're also famously anti-plastic. Famously.

Everyone knows about that. Wah, wah, wah. I hate plastic. Wah. Anyway, so like, right, are we going to see regulations in this administration to start limiting plastic when the president is so pro-oil and gas, which is the same industry as the plastic industry? We will drill, baby, drill. I think probably not. I will say though, and this is something fairly hopeful, there is a global effort right now

to create a plastic treaty involving over a hundred countries. So countries around the world are trying to create a global agreement to reduce plastic waste. That could include things like a cap on the production of plastic, bans on certain types of single use plastics, and also best practices for companies that are producing plastic for end of life. So like better recycling and so forth. So there are efforts at the global scale to fix the plastic problem.

They're ongoing. There's like some roadblocks, but it's happening. And so I think that is something that is worth celebrating should it come to pass. Okay. So you're saying fixing the plastic rain problem is really just fixing the plastic problem. But then you were also saying that like it's in our tires and the tires are on the road and it's just constantly getting in the air. That just feels like unwieldy. Yeah, I mean, I think this is a situation where like we need to focus on getting rid of the plastics that are not as essential. Like we

can acknowledge the fact that tires are useful. I mean, we can probably make tires that are not as essential. Like we can acknowledge the fact that tires are useful. I mean, we can probably make tires that are not like wearing away and filling the air with microplastics, but like in general, tire is good. I think like getting plastic cutlery would take out every time, probably pretty easy to get rid of. Like we don't really need plastic straws. Like use seaweed or whatever the fuck to make straws not disintegrate.

It's fine. Like we are innovative. We don't need to be. That's not a problem. So I think being clear about what the priority plastics are that we should get rid of is a way to make this problem not seem so overwhelming. You know, Benji, a former colleague of ours, Jerusalem Dempsis, I saw recently on our cursed shared social media platform, she wrote something like, I need everyone to stop talking to me about microplastics, I don't care.

Do you think at all in an era where people have bigger problems, be they, I don't know, they're 401k evaporating into the air, it's hard to care about the microplastics that are evaporating into the air. It's hard to care about the microplastics that are evaporating into the air. Do you think this is too low on the priority list that it's raining plastic?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like it's totally fair to not care about this. Like I am writing about the climate crisis, extinction crisis, like every week. And so I get it. Like I don't want another problem in my life. But there are also fairly simple things we can do as individuals on like a day to day level that help us reduce our own exposure.

Like I don't want to get sick. I don't want to have chronic illness. So like I'm going to filter my water, for example. That is what I like about this topic, which is that there are things you can do. And so like the headline is limit plastic that you're exposed to, obviously, plastic Tupperware. Don't use it, use glass, especially if you microwave in it. Dust is full of microplastics. So clean up after

yourself, use vacuums, etc. Avoid polyester and nylon clothing if you can afford like cotton. It's more comfortable, I think. Some people avoid sea salt because it comes from the sea and there's like plastic in the sea. Avoid sea salt? That one breaks my heart. I didn't know about that one. Dang it. But then it's like don't eat fish either because they're also from the sea. Yeah, like that is like performative if you're not eating sea salt. Like yeah, I mean, this is like the whole question about using plastic cutting boards too. Like, oh yeah, you're not eating sea salt. Like, I mean, this is like the whole question about using plastic cutting boards too. Like, you're not ingesting like a credit card's worth of plastic by using a plastic cutting board.

News you can use. Benji Jones Vox, thank you so much. Thank you, Sean. BenjiJonesVox.com, you can read his piece there. It's called We Got Rid of Acid Rain. Now Something Scarier is Falling from the Sky. Abhishek Artsy produced today's show. Fearlessly. Jolie Meyers edited. André Christensdottir and Patrick Boyd mixed. Miles Bryan checked the facts. This is The Rain Explained. Plastic rain, plastic rain

Plastic rain, plastic rain Plastic rain, plastic rain I only wanna see you dancing in the plastic rain You