• JackbyDev@programming.dev
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    2年前

    Probably a piece of microplastic. Not trying to be facetious. Microplastic already refers to a size of a piece of plastic as opposed to the material in general. Sort of like how gold is a material and a gold nugget is a piece of gold. As for how big this is what Wikipedia says the NOAA says.

    Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm (0.20 in) in length, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)[1][2] and the European Chemicals Agency.[3] They cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a variety of sources, including cosmetics, clothing, food packaging, and industrial processes.[4]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

    • Goodie@lemmy.world
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      2年前

      If you read below the fold in the article you get:

      The team identified nine different types of polymers and one type of rubber in the airborne microplastics – ranging in size from 7.1 to 94.6 micrometers.

    • Arthur_Leywin@lemmy.world
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      2年前

      So would that mean it is assumed that microplastics are spherical and the length refers to the diameter? So that we could calculate percent concentration by using the volumes.