Microplastics found in snow near top of Mount Everest
- Researcher and National Geographic explorer found the tiny particles in every sample she analysed
- Most of the microplastics detected on the world’s highest peak were fibrous, possibly coming from performance clothing and equipment used by climbers
Microplastic pollution is everywhere. It’s in the ocean. It’s in our food. And now it’s on Mount Everest.
Already known as the “world’s highest junkyard” for the trash left behind by tourists, even the supposedly pure snow on Everest contains the tiny particles of plastic pollution known as microplastic, a new study reports.
“It really surprised me to find microplastics in every single snow sample I analysed,” said study lead author Imogen Napper, a National Geographic explorer and marine scientist from the University of Plymouth in Britain. “Mount Everest is somewhere I have always considered remote and pristine.
“To know we are polluting near the top of the tallest mountain is a real eye-opener,” she said in a statement.
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Mount Everest has become the world’s highest garbage dump
The findings were published Friday in the journal One Earth, and were based on snow samples collected by a 2019 National Geographic expedition.
Microplastics – tiny particles of plastic that come from the slow breakdown of larger trash – pose an ecological threat because they are easily consumed by animals and are so small that they are difficult to clean up.