Researchers at the Sonnblick Observatory have accidentally found nanoplastics in the Austrian Alps from European cities such as Paris, London and Frankfurt. The research has been published in Environmental Pollution .
Scientists were looking for organic particles in snow and ice. They took samples, evaporated them and finally burned the residue to detect and analyze the resulting vapors. “Our detection method is a bit like a mechanical nose. And unexpectedly, it smelled burnt plastics in our snow samples,” lead researcher Dusan Materic explains in a statement. The detector recognized the odor of various types of plastic, mainly polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) .
The plastic particles that have been detected are less than 200 nm , which would be equivalent to one hundredth of the width of a human hair. According to the scientists, the finding is significantly smaller than the plastic particles that have been found in previous studies. “With this detection method, we are the first group to quantify nanoplastics in the environment,” says Materic. “Since the high Alps are a very remote and pristine area, we were quite surprised to find such a high concentration of nanoplastics there.” The results suggest that, in addition to microplastics, nanoplastics could also be found in the area .
“We were quite enthralled by these findings,” continues Materic. “It is highly unlikely that these nanoplastics originated in local virgin alpine areas. So where did they come from? We completely changed our research project to study this further.” The researchers found a striking correlation between high concentrations of nanoplastics and winds coming from major European cities , especially Frankfurt and the Ruhr industrial area in Germany, but also from the Netherlands, Paris and even London.
“Advanced modeling supported the idea that nanoplastics are transported by air from these urban locations,” says Materic. “That is potentially alarming , because it could mean that there are nanoplastic hot spots in our cities and, indeed, in the very air that we breathe. We are currently studying this in more detail.”
