A new study published in Science of the Total Environment examined caddisfly larval casings dating back to the 1970s to determine when microplastics first appeared.
When they hatch from eggs, caddisfly larvae use nearby material to encase their bodies in self-made, improvised shells, thus leaving behind artifacts from the past.
Scientists are so clever.
They found that small fragments of plastic have been appearing for decades, with one dating back to as early as 1971, which incorporated a piece of yellow plastic.
So 1971 featured the emergence of microplastics and also Matthew Dicks:
Two small, possibly problematic additions to the universe.
