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One of the direct impacts of gas flaring in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria is acid rain. The flared stack from associated gas in crude oil production emits huge deposits of toxins, which are a major cause of acid rain. There is now a consensus in our country’s science community that this is why acid rain could only fall within the Niger Delta region. The huge quantity of sulphuric dioxide and methane in the region’s atmosphere, emanating from the petroleum industry through gas flaring, is to blame.
By way of explanation, acid rain is not pure acid falling from the sky, but rather it is rainfall or atmospheric moisture that has been mixed with elements and gases that have caused the moisture to become more acidic than normal. Pure water has a p H of 7, and, generally, rainfall is somewhat on the acidic side – a bit less than 6. But, acid rain can have a p H of about 5.0 – 5.5, and can even be in the 4 range in the Niger Delta where plenty emissions are going on.
Acid rain leaches aluminum from the soil. That aluminum may be harmful to plants as well as animals. Acid rain also removes minerals and nutrients from the soil that trees need to grow. Some fish and animals, such as frogs, have a hard time adapting to and reproducing in an acidic environment. Many plants, such as evergreen trees, are damaged by acid rain and acid fog. The effect leaves the foliage blackish.
There is also a growing awareness that pollution and acid rain are accelerating the deterioration of buildings and monuments. In the Niger Delta, for instance, a casual survey will show the accelerated decadence of housing units and facades. One might also notice how acid rain has eaten away the stone in the cities’ landmark structures and stone artwork.
However, the environment can generally adapt to a certain amount of acid rain. Often, soil is slightly basic – due to naturally occurring limestone, which has a p H of greater than 7. Because bases counteract acids, these soils tend to balance out some of the acid rain’s acidity. But in areas where limestone does not naturally occur in the soil, acid rain can harm the environment.
But now, one wonders if there is any way the environment can adapt to the new environmental problem that scientists have currently discovered: Plastic rain. Although, research has not commenced in our own clime concerning this new phenomenon, primary observation will reveal that we are at risk because of our growing consumerism. We are not industrialized, but we are heavy users of hi-tech products with their usual non-biodegradable waste and end-of-life byproducts.
What has been discovered is that invisible particulates are blowing through the air and falling via raindrops: Microplastic particles, tiny chunks – that is, less than 5 millimetres long – of fragmented plastic bottles and microfibers that fray from clothes, and other pollutants that get sucked up in the Earth’s atmospheric systems and deposited in the wilderness.
Scientists, led by Janice Brahney, an environmental scientist at Utah State University, USA, wrote in the specialized journal Science, describing a startling discovery. 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 is the equivalent of over 120 million plastic water bottles!
This further confirms an increasingly hypothesized troubling scenario. For sure, science conjectured that microplastics are blowing all over the world, landing in supposedly pure habitats, like the Arctic and the remote French Pyrenees. They are flowing into the oceans via wastewater and contaminating deep-sea ecosystems, and they are even ejecting out of the water and blowing onto land in sea breezes. Now, scientists confirmed the phenomenon in America. Which means there is the highest of probability that it is ongoing in the rest of the world, given that these are fundamental atmospheric processes.
They are falling in the form of plastic rain – the new acid rain. This is indeed troubling because plastic rain could prove to be a more insidious problem than acid rain. As described earlier, acid rain is a consequence of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.
Acid rain is being managed with innovate systems and technologies. The question is how can the world manage plastic rain? For instance, by deploying scrubbers in power plants, and catalytic converters in cars, the United States and other countries have over the last several decades cut down on the acidification problem. But microplastic has already corrupted even the most remote environments, and there is no way to scrub water or land or air of the particles. As a matter of fact, the stuff is certainly everywhere, and it is not like there is a magnet that can be dragged through the oceans to sequester them.
Secondly, what makes plastic so useful is its toughness and durability; which is ironically what makes it an alarming pollutant. Plastic never really goes away, instead breaking into ever smaller bits that infiltrate ever smaller corners of the planet. What is more, the international consultancy firm, McKinsey, has projected that plastic waste is expected to skyrocket from 260 million tons a year to 460 million tons by 2030. This is brought about by more people joining the middle class in economically-developing countries, and as such joining the consumerism train which comes with tonnes of plastic packaging.
This new research comes with another troubling surprise: 30 percent of the sample particles were microbeads. Microbeads are manufactured solid plastic particles of less than one millimeter in their largest dimension. Frequently made of polyethylene, they are used in exfoliating personal care products, toothpastes and in biomedical and health-science research. In 2015, USA banned them from beauty products. Yet, in the US they are still used in industrial paints and coatings. These microbes are easily spewed into the atmosphere where they are picked up by winds and carried far and wide.
Meanwhile, scientists do not know yet what inhaling microbeads might mean for human health, but it can be reasonably assumed that it is not beneficial to our health. Bits of plastic tend to leach their component chemicals over time, and have been known to transport microbes, like viruses and bacteria. Thankfully, researchers are now beginning to explore what this means for other organisms in our ecosystem.
In the soils of our forest habitats, the arrival of plastics could have tumbling effects. There is a theory that these cannot just block up the digestive tract of small animals, like worms, but the chemicals in the plastics can have an effect on the soil. The former will upset the food chain and distort the fertility cycle of the habitat, while the latter will herald a whole new ecological concerns yet to be estimated.
This is why it is pertinent to mainstream the process started by Brahney and her colleagues. They have unearthed a hitherto masked ecological concern that needs more peer-reviewed intensive and extensive research, because it may have a connection to climate change. They established that microplastics may be changing the thermal properties of soil, for instance, altering how it absorbs and stores heat. They may also lead to the growth of more or less of the microbes that normally live there, rearranging communities and altering the way the dirt cycles nutrients. Microplastics may also change hoe water moves through these soils.
