Microplastics have been detected in the ocean, circulating in human blood, on the top of Mount Everest, and encased in Arctic ice, but never before in freshly fallen snow—until now. On Wednesday, new research published in the science journal The Cryosphere showed that tiny plastic particles had been found in fresh snowfall in the Antarctic for the first time. Alex Aves, a PhD student at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, conducted the research, collecting snow samples from across 19 sites on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica from late 2019. “We were optimistic that she wouldn’t find any microplastics in such a pristine and remote location,” said her supervisor, Dr. Laura Revell. But every single sample turned out to contain microplastics. “It’s incredibly sad,” Aves said, “but finding microplastics in fresh Antarctic snow highlights the extent of plastic pollution into even the most remote regions of the world.” Aves said that the most likely source of the microplastics was nearby scientific research stations, but that modeling has shown “their origin could have been up to 6,000km away.”
