It’s raining plastic! A recent study of the chemical composition of rain in the Boulder to Denver corridor and in the mountains of Colorado that was conducted by a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey produced some surprising and disturbing results — 90 percent of the samples collected contained plastics, mostly fibers and blue in color. We’ve all now seen the terrible pictures of plastic trash on beaches and piling up in landfills. But to date, there have been very few studies examining microplastics in rain. It was only by luck that the researcher even decided to look at rain samples under a microscope to see them, as opposed to just testing their chemical makeup. But that accident revealed that plastic is even more ubiquitous than previously thought.
