Microplastics Found in Fresh Sierra Nevada Snow: UC Riverside Team Reports Findings, with Plastic Fibers Even at Remote Sites
Nevada — A University of California, Riverside research team that collected fresh snow samples at seven sites across the Sierra Nevada found that even the most remote locations consistently contain tiny plastic fibers in new snow, according to a study reported by Nevada Current on October 30.
Environmental toxicologist Aleksandra Karapetrov had skied in remote parts of the Sierra Nevada for years and wondered how pristine the seemingly clean snow really was; her team tested fresh snowfall at seven sites over six months.
The results, published this month in Environmental Science and Technology, show significant amounts of microplastics in fresh snowfall at both remote and populated sites. Sierra Nevada snowpack supplies about 60% of northern Nevada's freshwater, so the finding could be significant, though the study did not measure how much plastic ultimately reaches drinking water.
Karapetrov said microplastics research is still in its infancy. The study is a reminder that plastic pollution travels far beyond what intuition suggests — even high-mountain snow far from cities is not spared — and further research is needed to trace microplastics from snowfall to water supplies.
Source: GSM America
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Last Night's Snow, Tioga Pass, Yosemite NP 5-20-15 (17901352428)。来源：Wikimedia Commons（inkknife_2000 (7.5 million views +)，CC BY-SA 2.0）
