By Andru Shively

Wind turbines are generally regarded as the good guys. Stewarding over often idyllic landscapes from on high, the elegant, towering wind spinners benevolently produce clean, green energy for happy families below. The occasional falcon flying into their airspace and being chopped down is usually accepted as unavoidable collateral damage – each an unfortunate sacrifice to appease the Venti, gods of the wind.

But now the myth is crumbling, and the wind turbines are revealing themselves to be more akin to the two-faced Janus, dirtying up the air just as they harness its power.

As Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES) has reportedly discovered, the rotor blades of wind turbines are in fact catapulting microplastic particles into the air. There are no exact figures yet, but initial estimates put the number at 1,400 t per year, which are flung uncontrollably in all directions by centrifugal force. Not good.

We might, of course, cut the wind giants some slack here. Even bigger polluters are those of us who wear shoes with rubber soles and rub off more than 9,000 t of debris onto the pavement every year. Tread lightly in that case, wherever the winds may lead you.