Persona Digest

Minuscule shreds and threads of plastic are turning up all over, including in the snow on Mount Everest. 

  “We’ve known that plastic is in the deep sea, and now it’s on the tallest mountain on Earth,” says Imogen Napper, a marine scientist at the University of Plymouth in England and a National Geographic Explorer. “It’s ubiquitous through our whole environment.” 

  Plastic plays an increasingly large role in our lifestyles: Globally, the use of plastics has shot up from around 5 million metric tons in the 1950s to more than 330 million metric tons in 2020. As they’re used and cast away, these plastic products shed tiny particles. The broken-down bits of bags, bottles and other consumer plastics, each smaller than 5 millimeters, can harm animals, such as marine crabs that get plastics stuck in their gills (SN: 7/8/14). They may also mess with ecosystems (SN: 1/31/20). 

  Here are some of the most extreme places where microplastics have been found.