Even Spiderwebs Are Now Hosting The Most Pervasive Plastic Pollution

We do not know what microplastics are. From the bottom of the ocean to the highest peak on the planet, we find trash like this.

We are figuring out why. Microplastics can travel in the air, floating through the atmosphere, until they get stopped by something.

Scientists made use of an ingenious method for tracking air pollution, thanks to spiderwebs, in a new study.

Barbara Scholz-Bttcher from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg in Germany says that spiders are found all over the world.

Anything that floats through the air can be trapped by their sticky webs.

When you walk through a spiderweb, you might think it's a bad thing, but it turns out to be a great way to monitor particulates in the city.

Student researcher Rebecca Smuth collected spiderwebs attached to street-side bus stops in the city of Oldenburg in north-western Germany.

Analyzing the web samples back in the lab, the researchers checked the strands for different types of plastic, and found that they had stuck to the web.

Isabel Gomann says that all the spiderwebs were contaminated with microplastics.

Microplastics can account for up to 10 percent of the weight of the whole web, and is made up of a number of different types of microplastics.

The team says that C-PET is likely derived from textile fibers and that about 90 percent of the debris was variations ofPET.

The tire wear particles were expected to be found in volume given the location of the web collections.

Due to their synthetic nature, TWP rubbers are being included in the definition of microplastic pollution.

Even though the findings amount to yet another dismal reminder of the pervasiveness of microplastic pollution, at least here we've identified a clever and inexpensive way to help monitor the problem.

Spiderwebs have been used for environmental testing for at least 30 years, but this is the first time they have been examined for microplastics.

The researchers say that the sampling is simple and no special sampling devices are needed.

There are covered bus stops that are popular all over the world. Spiderwebs are an easy way to mirror plastic in urban air.

The findings are reported in a journal.