Recently fallen snow across the Sierra Nevada Mountains contained microscopic bits of plastic most commonly found in clothing or packaging.
According to Utah News Dispatch, Aleksandra Karapetrova, an environmental toxicologist at the University of California, Riverside, and her team found microplastics throughout the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range during their six-month study.
They conducted the study across seven sites in the Sierra Nevada, measuring between 270 and 3,200 plastic particles per square meter per day in remote locations after a snowstorm. The researchers also found that areas with more human activity, like ski areas, gathered as many as 7,500 plastic particles per square meter per day.
“It was surprising the consistency at which we found microplastics everywhere,” Karapetrova said. “It’s kind of disrupting this narrative of pristineness. I hope it brings awareness to the circularity and widespreadness of pollution. There’s this boomerang effect, and it’s important we recognize that.”
Microplastics enter the atmosphere when plastic products break down or shed fibers. The fragments and fibers are transported by winds. Although the process isn’t fully understood yet, microplastics can travel long distances through the atmosphere.
As the plastic particles are traveling through the atmosphere, snowflakes collect the pieces through a process called scavenging.
“Snowflakes have such a big surface area, it’s well known that they’re good for scavenging particles in general, like dust particles and minerals, from the atmosphere,” Karapetrova said.
Additionally, Karapetrova noted that storms that occur after long dry periods tend to have more microplastics in the snow.
Some microplastics are too small to be measured with current technology. With the limited amount of research available about the effects of microplastics in the atmosphere and the potential impacts on human health, it is difficult for scientists, like Karapetrova, to fully understand their effects.
“There’s only so many microplastics of a size range that they’re detecting. We don’t have methods to even measure nanoplastics yet that are verifiable. There’s limits to what we know for sure,” Karapetrova said.
There is still uncertainty about how widespread microplastics are in drinking water and in the snowpack, with no standardized testing method.
Author: Lainey Porter
Photo: Sonya Maple, CDFW
Editor: Charlee Steed
outdoors@suunews.net