When it snows in the Arctic, there’s another kind of flake drifting down alongside the ice crystals. Tiny bits of degraded plastic, commonly called microplastics, have been found swirling among the snow in otherwise pristine Arctic environments.
Microplastic pollution has previously been found everywhere from city streets to the deep seafloor and remote, uninhabited islands. Researchers say the find may explain why previous studies found microplastics in Arctic sea ice and the deep sea.
