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This snow is not as clean as it looks.
That is why Russian researchers collect samples.
They want to know how much microplastics in the snow endanger the Siberian ecosystem.
Danil Vorobyov, biologist at Tomsk University:
“We took
snow samples
from the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia up to the Arctic Circle.
So over a distance of more than 2,000 kilometers. "
Siberia is one of the most sparsely populated regions on earth.
Nevertheless, the researchers found plastic particles in the snow even in supposedly untouched places on the tundra.
The researchers assume that the particles are transported through the atmosphere and then fall to the ground with snowflakes.
The size of microplastics is comparable to that of plant pollen.
They too can travel thousands of kilometers through the air with air currents.
Yulia Frank, microbiologist at the University of Tomsk:
"We know that not only rivers and the oceans play a role in the global cycle of microplastics, but also soils, living beings and, of course, the atmosphere."
When the snow melts, the plastic gets into the soil and into the groundwater.
Rivers wash it into the Arctic Sea - and into the stomachs of fish.
The Russian researchers want to understand more precisely how the plastic harms animals and plants.
Yulia Frank, microbiologist at Tomsk University:
»Although microplastics are microscopic, they offer a sufficiently large surface on which toxic contaminants can dock.
If a biofilm then grows on the particles, living things can easily absorb heavy metals, benzopyrenes and other toxins. "
Even the snow in Germany has probably long since contained microplastics.
In 2019, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute detected such contamination in snow samples from Bavaria, Bremen and the Swiss Alps.