If you like to sing in the rain, bad news: many scientific studies have found that our waves are filled with chemical elements such as microplastics or eternal pollutants, also called PFAS. Pollution that does not surprise researchers. Humanity is simply harvesting what it has sown for years. The phenomenon seems to be global and could well become a major public health problem.
What awaits us strangely resembles the episode of acid rains, as the online magazine Vox recalls. In the 1970s, the air was so polluted by coal power plants and cars’ exhaust pots, the water cycle found it soiled and toxic rains killed the fish and infects the forests. Touched, Europe and the United States had jointly took measures to limit the impact of precipitation and, a few decades later, the acid rains had almost completely disappeared. Problem: Limiting these emissions will not solve our current problem, the pollutants we face today being almost impossible to eliminate.
It is also the characteristic of perfluoroalkylas and polyfluoroalkylas, more often called pfas or eternal pollutants. We find these latter in particular in the composition of kitchen stoves, of which they make the non -stick coating. These molecules bear their name very well since their degradation, in our body or in nature, can take decades.
“No place is safe”
These polluting elements have therefore managed to make its way to our rainwater. A study, published in June 2020 on the Science site, revealed that it had spotted the presence of microplastics in the showers that fell on national parks in the western United States. In this research, these were protected natural areas, demonstrating that“No place is immune to plastic pollution”.
Janice Brahney, biogeochemist at the Utah State University and responsible for the study, explains that these traces of pollution come mainly from road axes. Once the particles are released by cars, they float in the air and can be swept away anywhere by the clouds. The scientist also evokes the waste that accumulates in the oceans by millions of tonnes each year. According to her, they too end up integrating the water cycle, the particles according to the water evaporated into the air, then falling back into precipitation.
The consequences on organisms could be significant, especially as filtering operated by treatment plants fail to eliminate all of the microplastics. The results of a study published in January 2025 in the Revue Plos Water reveal the presence of small quantities of microplastics in bottled water and tap water in France.
What consequences for our health? It is still too early to say. A study published in February 2025 in the journal Nature believes that it is possible that the presence of microplastics in the body promotes the development of cancers, cardiac, renal diseases, as well as that of Alzheimer. In addition, another study published the same month in the journal Nature Medicine, tells us that the human brain would contain on average the equivalent by weight of a disposable microplastic spoon.
