Plastic waste in Antarctica reveals scale of global pollution

Plastic waste and toxic chemicalsfound in remote parts of the Antarctic this year add to evidencethat pollution is spreading to the ends of the Earth,environmental group Greenpeace said on Thursday.

Microplastics tiny bits of plastic from the breakdown ofeverything from shopping bags to car tires were detected innine of 17 water samples collected off the Antarctic peninsulaby a Greenpeace vessel in early 2018, it said.

And seven of nine snow samples taken on land in Antarcticafound chemicals known as PFAs (polyfluorinated alkylated
substances), which are used in industrial products and can harmwildlife.

"We may think of the Antarctic as a remote and pristinewilderness," Frida Bengtsson of Greenpeace's Protect theAntarctic campaign said in a statement about the findings.

"But from pollution and climate change to industrial krillfishing, humanity's footprint is clear," she said. "Theseresults show that even the most remote habitats of the Antarcticare contaminated with microplastic waste and persistenthazardous chemicals."

The United Nations' environment agency says plasticpollution has been detected from the Arctic to Antarctica and inremote places including the Mariana Trench, the deepest part ofthe world's oceans in the Pacific.

On Tuesday, it said that less than a 10th of all the plasticever made has been recycled, and governments should considerbanning or taxing single-use bags or food containers to stem atide of pollution.

Crossing oceans

Last year researchers at the University of Hull and theBritish Antarctic Survey found that levels of microplasticinAntarctica were five times higher than expected only countinglocal sources such as research stations and ships.

That means that the pollution is crossing the SouthernOcean, often considered as a barrier to man-made pollution.
Scientists say the long-term impacts on marine life are unknown.

At the other end of the world, researchers in Germanyreported in April that sea ice floating on the Arctic Oceancontains large amounts of plastic waste, which could be releasedas the ice thins because of global warming.

"Plastic stays around for hundreds of years," said authorIlka Peeken of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and MarineResearch.

In trying to understand the spread of pollution, she toldReuters that new areas for research could include how far tinybits of plastic are getting blown on winds to the Arctic and howmuch is swept by ocean currents.