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Picture the Arctic. Does it bring to mind images of a pristine icy wilderness?

Pure white icebergs, smog-free skies, and clear blue ocean waters? Well, don’t forget some of the world’s worst microplastic pollution. Despite being surrounded by some of the least densely populated countries on Earth, the Arctic Ocean somehow ended up with one of the highest concentrations of microplastics we’ve ever measured.

Which begs some important questions, like: How did all that plastic get there in the first place? And what do we do about it? So let’s dive in and learn how microplastics are traveling around the planet to make one of the most isolated areas on Earth one of the most polluted. [Intro music]

It’s pretty hard to avoid plastic these days.

We’re pumping out plastic  pollution at an alarming rate, with 19 million metric tons  of the stuff finding its way from land into the ocean annually… And we’re not just talking about plastic bags and straws that get gobbled up by sea turtles, although that’s terrible, too. One particular type of plastic pollution, largely invisible to the naked eye, is spreading across the globe: microplastics. Microplastics are essentially anything smaller than 5 mm in diameter.

And although we’re intentionally adding microplastics to products like exfoliating face washes and toothpastes, we’ve accidentally create them, too. For example, every time we do a load of laundry that contains synthetic fabric,. small pieces of that fabric break off and pollute the water heading down the drain. Even large plastic waste turns into microplastic pieces over time.

Not surprisingly, a huge portion of ocean litter can be traced back to fisheries. This is often from derelict gear that is intentionally dumped. But what starts out as big chunks of netting and other debris breaks down into tiny terrors.

As plastic becomes degraded by exposure to sunlight, temperature fluctuations, and physical forces like crashing waves, microplastics are created. And they’re accumulating in the environment around the world. Given that microplastics are typically the result of plastic waste breaking down, you might think that microplastic pollution would be highest where there are the most people.

But the Arctic rips a hole  right through that logic. Researchers across multiple  studies found microplastics in abundance around this polar region. And we're not just talking about some plastic discovered here and there.

The Arctic has some of the highest concentrations of microplastics in the world! One study from 2020 found more than a thousand pieces of microplastics per cubic meter in the Arctic water column. And if that’s not bad enough, several other studies have found extremely high concentrations of microplastics trapped in the ice too, with one study finding up to 12 million particles per cubic meter in some areas!.

That’s right, ice. These tiny plastic bits aren’t  just floating around in the water, but the Arctic sea ice itself is becoming a frigid storage facility of this disastrous debris. And it gets worse.

Microplastics have actually been found down to 1000 meters below the surface of the ocean. Shockingly high concentrations were even discovered within deep sea sediments! And given that we only know where 1% of the millions of tons of plastics that make their way into oceans each year actually ends up, we can now point to the bottom of the ocean as a major collection zone.

The wild thing is that a number of different  types of microplastics have been found in the Arctic, not just the kind you’d expect, like broken up bits of abandoned fishing gear. That sent a red flag to researchers that this isn’t simply big ocean plastic waste drifting around and breaking apart in the northern waters. Plastic is clearly arriving from distant sources.

There are still a lot of mysteries surrounding how these plastics are accumulating in massive quantities in such a remote location, but we do have a few ideas  about how they’re getting there. Now, as expected, a fair bit of the pollution is not only from ships and industry in Arctic waters, but also the nearest inhabited areas, like Greenland. This tracks,

especially given that remote communities tend to have poor waste management options to work with.

But given that Arctic pollution is so high and population density is very low, this alone doesn’t account for the sheer quantity and diversity of plastic in that area. Researchers think a lot of it comes from much farther away, brought to the Arctic by way of ocean currents, floating rafts of ice, and even precipitation. To try and understand where all this plastic was coming from, researchers used satellite images and sea ice motion to track the movements of water.

They also took ice cores to figure out when these plastics became embedded in the ice, and where the ice originally formed. Now it’s hard to come to strong conclusions about the origins of a lot of these plastics, they’re so widely used in various products, meaning they can’t be tied to  any one industry or location. That said, using models and accumulated data, they were able to figure out some of the most likely pathways.

For one, plastics are traveling from the Pacific Ocean via currents that move through the Bering Sea, and that’s in addition to Atlantic currents that bring North American and European pollution up into Arctic waters from the opposite direction. Microplastics are also  likely traveling via rivers, most notably from Siberia, that weave through densely populated areas, picking up micropollutants along the way before eventually reaching the ocean. Given that about 10% of  the world’s river discharge ends up in the Arctic, that’s a huge volume of water for urban waste to hitchhike north in.

To put it simply, this seems to be a case of, all roads lead to the Arctic. And we have very good reason to be concerned with this build up of microplastics in the Arctic, remote or not. Being so tiny, microplastics  don’t just get widely distributed in the environment, but also within the living things that call these spaces home.

They’ve been found in a wide range of organisms, from seabirds to fish to marine worms. Although we don’t fully understand the health impacts that come along with accumulating plastics inside of you, it's hard to imagine it’s good. Even if we don’t have all the answers for how the plastic is getting to the Arctic, solutions have been proposed.

Given that plastic doesn’t  exactly care about borders, researchers have pointed out the need for local and global action, from improved waste management worldwide to stricter regulations around  Arctic fishery practices.. There’s also a bright future for technologies that help us with plastic-free living, including biodegradable fishing nets. There’s no one perfect and easy solution, but these kinds of changes could definitely help us move in the right direction.

Whether you’re in an urban center or a remote icy landscape, one thing is for certain: The plastics you use are breaking down into tiny pieces and getting, well, everywhere. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be that way. If we produce less and reuse more, we can stop the flow of this invisible menace.

Maybe one day, the Arctic really will be that pristine wilderness many people imagine. Now, there are a lot of ways that you can help take care of the environment, like using less gas. Now, electric vehicles are great in theory, but are they worth the money?

You can discover the answer thanks to brilliant. Yes! the interactive online learning platform with thousands of lessons in science, computer science and math also tackles case studies now. In their case study on maximizing the electric car value, you'll use correlations and regressions to learn for yourself what kind of bang an EV buyer gets for their buck.

You'll get to work with EV performance data to understand how batteries compare to plug in hybrids, and you might even learn some stats along the way To get started go to brilliant.org/scishow or the link in the description down below. That link also gives the first 200 people who sign up 20% off an annual premium Brilliant subscription and you'll get your first 30 days free. Thanks to brilliant for supporting this sideshow video [ OUTRO ]