Scientists find plastic microbeads in remote Arctic ice

Even in the Arctic, microscopic particles of plastic are falling out of the sky with snow, a study has found.

The scientists said they were shocked by the sheer number of particles they found… more than 10,000 of them per litre in the Arctic.

It means that even there, people are likely to be breathing in microplastics from the air – though the health implications remain unclear.

The region is often seen as one of the world’s last pristine environments.

A German-Swiss team of researchers has published the work in the journal Science Advances.

Researchers collected snow samples from the Svalbard islands using a low-tech method – a dessert spoon and a flask.

In the laboratory at Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven they discovered far more contaminating particles than they’d expected.

Also scientists found the material trapped in ice taken from Lancaster Sound, an isolated stretch of water which they had assumed might be relatively sheltered from drifting plastic pollution The team drew 18 ice cores of up to two metres in length from four locations, and saw visible plastic beads and filaments of various shapes and sizes.

The researchers used a helicopter to land on ice floes and retrieve the samples during an 18-day icebreaker expedition through the Northwest Passage, the hazardous route linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

The United Nations estimates that 100 million tonnes of plastic have been dumped in the oceans to date.

The researchers said the ice they sampled appeared to be at least a year old and had probably drifted into Lancaster Sound from more central regions of the Arctic.

Via Euronews/BBC/ Reuters/National Geographic/Science Advances.