"After collecting rainwater and air samples for 14 months, they calculated that over 1,000 metric tons of microplastic particles fall into 11 protected areas in the western US each year. That’s the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles. “We just did that for the area of protected areas in the West, which is only 6 percent of the total US area,”" "30 percent of the sample particles were microbeads, tiny synthetic spheres that the United States banned from beauty products in 2015."

"researchers .. speculate that the microbeads are coming from industrial paints and coatings. If these are sprayed, they could easily spew the microbeads into the atmosphere, "

"the stuff never truly goes away, it just gets shredded into smaller bits that disperse all over the world, perhaps spending many years cycling through different systems—air, land, and sea."