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Micro plastic can travel polluting inaccessible areas

Micro-plastic can travel, polluting inaccessible areas: study

LONDON: Researchers have found micro plastic fragments in a remote region of the Pyrenees mountains in France, showing that micro plastics can travel in the atmosphere.

A team of researchers from British and French universities collected samples from the field site in southwest France which was previously regarded as uncontaminated.

According to their research paper published Monday in the Nature Geoscience, average daily counts of 365 deposits per square meter of micro plastics were recorded in the samples.

“This mountainous area has been the subject of numerous interdisciplinary studies in ecology and environment over the past decade, but we would still never have anticipated that this latest study would reveal such high levels of micro plastics deposits,” said Gael Le Roux, one of the co-authors of the paper.

“An air mass trajectory analysis shows micro plastic transport through the atmosphere over a distance of up to 95 km,” according to the paper.

Previous researches suggested that digesting or breathing in micro plastics can lead to changes in such behaviors as feeding and mating habits.

While the toxicity of micro plastics has not been proved, researchers warned of possible menace of micro plastic concentration to the environment and all living organisms.

 

 

 

 

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M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.