Forget About Landmark Mountains Even Remote And Secluded Peaks Are Not Free Of Plastic Waste

The menace of plastic polluting every corner of the planet is a reality far more colossal to be overlooked now. The earth has reached a stage where there is no turning back if we don't rise to the magnitude of the issue and act accordingly. Even the peaks located in far remote areas from the human settlement have been polluted because people use plastic. The researchers were alarmed at the fact that a secluded mountain region thought to be free of plastic was found covered with airborne microplastic and the peak was polluted to such as extent that parallels could be drawn with cities such as Paris.

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The journal Nature Geoscience unearthed that an average of 365 tiny pieces of plastic settled every day on each square metre of inhabited, high-altitude area in the Pyrenees spread over France and Spain.

¡°It is astounding and worrying that so many particles were found in the Pyrenees field site,¡± said lead author Steve Allen, a doctoral student at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland.

The microplastics mostly between 10 and 150 micrometres across including fibres, fragments and sheet-like piece of film were found by the study.

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To put it in simple words, one can understand that human hair, on average, is about 70 micrometres in width.

¡°We would never have anticipated that this study would reveal such high levels of microplastic deposits,¡± added co-author Gael Le Roux, a researcher at EcoLab in Toulouse, in southwestern France.

Plastic has emerged as the major pollutant and up to 12 million tonnes of plastics are being dumped into oceans every year and millions more clog the waterways and landfills.

The scientists have now started to measure the damage plastic has caused to wildlife and human health.

Earlier this years. a study revealed that the uncovered plastic fragments in the guts of the animals even in the animals living more than 10 km below the ocean surface. At the beginning of the year, two whales were found dead on the beach, one in Philippines and other in Sardinia, Italy, the dead whales had 40 and 20 kilos of plastic respectively in their stomach.

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As polluted as Paris

¡°Our most significant finding is that microplastics are transported through the atmosphere and deposited in a remote, high-altitude mountain location far from any major city,¡± co-author Deonie Allen, also from EcoLab, told AFP. ¡°This means that microplastics are an atmospheric pollutant.¡±

The researchers found out that the concentrations of microplastic pollution were at par at particle concentration in major cities, inlcuding Paris and the southern Chinese undustrial city of Dongguan.

¡°Our findings are within the range of those reported for greater Paris, and can thus be considered comparable,¡± Deonie Allen told AFP. ¡°We did not expect the number of particles to be so high.¡±

(With AFP inputs)