Microplastics are everywhere, and even Arctic snow is contaminated
Berlin, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- Microplastics have become ubiquitous on the earth, not only appearing in natural water bodies, drinking water and even animals, a new survey found that microplastics can also enter the atmospheric circulation and accompany snowfall into mountains and polar regions. In 1 liter of Arctic snow, there are as many as 14,400 microplastic particles.
Microplastics usually refer to plastic particles less than 5 mm in diameter. German and Swiss researchers published a paper in the new issue of the American journal Science Advances. They collected snow samples in many places in Germany, the Swiss Alps and the Arctic region, filtered the snow melt, and then used infrared microscopy to detect residual plastic particles in the filtrate.
The results found that microplastics were present in a large number of snow samples in these regions. A rural road in southern Germany had the highest concentration of microplastics, with 154,000 microplastics per liter. Arctic snow samples were also high, with 14,400 microplastics per liter.
Researchers said that given meteorological reasons, it is believed that most of the microplastics in Europe, especially in the Arctic, come from atmospheric circulation and snowfall. While microplastics have previously been found in the air, this study shows they can travel great distances through atmospheric circulation and reach the surface via snowfall.
"This additional transport route also explains why so many microplastics have been found in Arctic sea ice and deep ocean in previous studies." Says Melanie Bergmann, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Helmholtz Polar and Marine Center in Germany.
While microplastics may pose a threat to human health, Bergmann acknowledged that research is lacking, and existing research has focused on microplastics ingested by humans through the food chain. Therefore, once it is established that the atmosphere transmits large amounts of microplastics, "it naturally raises questions about how much microplastics humans breathe in and what the effects are." (Reporter Zhang Yirong)