'Plastic pollution is not just a city, river or sea problem,' the study's co-author told Newsweek.
Tiny pieces of plastic can travel up to 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, through the air, according to scientists who studied pollution in a remote area in the mountains of France.
Past research has shown how microplastics populate bodies of water, sailing through rivers to contaminate oceans. In a study published earlier this year, for example, scientists looking for microplastics in the digestive systems of sea animals stranded off the U.K. coast found the material in every creature they tested.
The team wanted to answer whether the plastic would be present in the air at this remote locale, and also what type they it might discover. Polystyrene and polyethylene were the most commonly found plastics. These are widely used in single-use products, such as food containers. Polypropylene, which is found in some textiles, made up 18 percent of the findings.
Steve Allen, a Ph.D. candidate and environmental atmospheric scientist at the University of Strathclyde, told Newsweek: “Now we need to do detailed and international research to identify how far this atmospherically transported pollutant moves and where it has been transported to.” Stephanie Wright, a research fellow at the MRC-PHE Center for Environment and Health, King's College London, commented:"We know microplastics deposit out of the atmosphere in megacities. This has not previously been shown for a pristine environment, however, it is unsurprising given their low density and diffuse nature. The back-trajectory findings should, however, be inferred with caution due to the small sample size.
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