Source: FAST COMPANY, 5/25/21


Microplastics—tiny pieces of plastic smaller than five millimeters across—are everywhere, from snow in the Arctic and rain in the Rocky Mountains to bottled water and beer. On the ocean floor, there may be nearly 16 million metric tons of it. In the top 200 meters of the Atlantic Ocean, there may be 21 million more metric tons. It’s in lakes. It’s in rivers. It’s even on Mount Everest. And the smaller it gets, the harder it is to remove from water; technology attempting to clean up water usually focuses on catching larger pieces of plastic before they break down.

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