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 Miles Bryan, 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
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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 go out in the rain in the springtime? Feel a little sense of renewal? Yeah.
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.
Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, we are launching our much-anticipated book club, and we're doing it with Abby Wambach and Glennon Doyle, who will introduce their upcoming book, We Can Do Hard Things, Answers to Life's 20 Questions. Plus, we've got some fun and important updates from The W and the NWSL, and of course, we've got a new Are You a Megan or Are You a Sue?
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I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Yes, sir. Are you listening? Yes, I am.
Today Explained, Sean Romsferm 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, it's in the name, micro. It's just 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 their longest side.
So it's like half a centimeter, not necessarily invisible, but you can get much, much, much smaller and into another category called nanoplastics, which are less than one micrometer, which is a millionth of a meter or a thousandth of a millimeter. So 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.
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