2020/07/14 by Nikolaos Evangeliou, Henrik Grythe, Zbigniew Klimont +4 · 19 citations
Environmental Science · #Microplastics and Plastic Pollution #Recycling and Waste Management Techniques
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17201-9
openalex publication_date 2020/07/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPs – tire wear particles and BWPs – brake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiencies of these particles to remote regions. About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (100 kt yr −1 and 40 kt yr −1 respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr −1 ). We suggest that the Arctic may be a particularly sensitive receptor region, where the light-absorbing properties of TWPs and BWPs may also cause accelerated warming and melting of the cryosphere.