Record level of plastic particle pollution is found in Arctic sea ice

THE amount of tiny plastic particles polluting ice in the Arctic is at record levels, shocking research has found.

A study of five ice cores in the Arctic Ocean discovered 12,000 microplastic particles per litre of sea ice – double the amount found in a survey a few years before.

The particles include tiny bits of paint, plastic, bits of car tyre, cigarette filters and nylon from the fishing industry.

Study author Dr Ilka Peeken said: ‘These findings suggest that both the expanding shipping and fishing activities in the Arctic are leaving their mark. The high microplastic concentrations in the sea ice can thus not only be attributed to sources outside the Arctic Ocean. Instead, they point to local pollution in the Arctic.’

The scientists also warned that the majority of the particles they found were microscopically small, meaning they could easily be taken up by singlecelled organisms and tiny crustaceans.

In turn these organisms can be eaten by fish – and end up in the human food chain – as well as potentially causing health problems in marine creatures.

Dr Peeken, of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, said: ‘No-one can say for certain how harmful these tiny plastic particles are for marine life, or ultimately also for human beings.’

Microplastics are particles, fibres or fragments which range in size from just a few thousandths of a millimetre to under five millimetres. They come from sources including the breakdown of bigger plastic items, washing synthetic clothes which releases fibres that are then washed to the sea, or from car tyre friction on roads.

The scientists bombarded microparticles in the ice samples with infrared light and then analysed the radiation they reflected to identify what was in the samples. The research team gathered the ice samples in the course of three expeditions to the Arctic Ocean on the icebreaker Polarstern in the spring of 2014 and summer of 2015.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, revealed far more microplastics than previous assessments. The German team’s results of 12,000 particles per litre of ice compares with around 6,000 plastic pieces per litre of ice found during a survey by US researchers. The earlier survey, by Dr Rachel Obbard, of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and colleagues, was published in 2014, but the samples were taken in 2005 and 2010.

Heathrow, Britain’s busiest airport, said yesterday that it is to recycle all single-use coffee cups. Passengers use 13.5million disposable coffee cups a year.