14 DAY TRIAL // According to a new study recently published in the scientific journal Nature, both the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau are currently accumulating noteworthy amounts of organic pollutants.
What worries researchers even more is the fact that some of these pollutants are persistent ones, meaning that they are resistant to breakdown and therefore cannot be gotten rid of all that easily.
As explained in the paper published by the scientists, some of these persistent organic pollutants (POPs, for short) are by-products of the practice of either burning fuel or processing electronic waste.
Others end up polluting the environment after having been used as pesticides or herbicides, and a third category is leaked into natural ecosystems by industries such as that of manufacturing solvents, plastics and pharmaceuticals.
“They tend to evaporate in hot places, hitch a ride on winds, and then condense in cold regions,” specialist Xu Baiqing, currently working with the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research in Beijing, commented with respect to the behavior of these POPs.
After analyzing 16 different samples of air collected from locations spread across the targeted regions and also looking at data concerning the local weather patterns, the scientists managed to pin down the origin of most of these POPs.
Thus, it was discovered that the organic pollutants found in western parts of the Tibetan plateau had been transported there from either Europe or Africa.
The organic pollutants found in the Tibetan plateau's southern and southeastern parts had been brought there by the Indian monsoon, Nature informs us.
The same source says that worrying amounts of POPs were identified in the soil, the grass, the trees and the fish currently found in the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau.
Because of this, the researchers fear that these pollutants will simply move up the food chain as time passes by and will eventually affect local communities.