Microplastics in remote region of the world: Insights from the glacier of Geladandong, China

Abstract

Although microplastics have been detected in different remote areas, people are still short of knowledge for environmental background of microplastics in remote area. In this work, we collected air, snow, river and lake water samples from Geladandong region (the origin of the Yangtze River) of the Tibetan Plateau, along with microscopy and Micro-FTIR analyses. Microplastics abundance (0.13–19.8 items/L) was the low as compared with other remote areas worldwide, and the morphology of fiber and film, material of PP and PET, and size of <300 μm were the main microplastics features. Due to natural aging during the transport processes, microplastics were degrading to smaller particle in Geladandong. Air mass trajectory analysis shows microplastics in Geladandong is transferred by repeated atmospheric transport from no human activity place. All these results suggested that Geladandong is an ideal research area for environmental background value and characteristic of microplastics. In conjunction with data from other remote regions, we established the background values for microplastics in remote areas. This work provides quantitative evidence for establishing environmental quality standards, and monitoring environmental changes.