Particles from car tyres are the largest source of nanoplastic pollution in the Alpine highlands, a pioneering project has found.
Expert climbers have teamed up with scientists to collect pollution-free samples and are now taking to the peaks to conduct the first global assessment of the nanoplastics, which are easily carried around the world by the wind.
In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists found nanoplastics at five of 14 sites in the French, Swiss and Italian Alps.
The most common nanoplastic was found to be tyre particles (41%), followed by polystyrene (28%) and polyethylene (12%). Each tyre on the world’s 1.6 billion cars can lose 4 kg over its lifetime and could be the largest source of tiny plastic pollution.
In 2025, the Global Atmospheric Plastic Survey plans to collect additional samples from Svalbard and Iceland in the Arctic, as well as Everest, India, Wyoming and Alaska in the US and northern Canada, as well as European samples from the Spanish Pyrenees, Poland and Norway.