Searching for microplastics on North America’s highest peak

Two college students will soon be stuffing snow from the slopes of Alaska’s highest mountain into Nalgene bottles. Their goal is to see if that precipitation contains tiny plastic particles that are ubiquitous everywhere else on Earth. Matthew Crisafi-Lurtsema, 20, and Roger Jaramillo, 23, are both undergraduate engineering students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. They are now spending their evenings sweating beneath weighted backpacks while thinking about the food they need to pack for a month of living on snow-capped Denali. When their meals are all bagged up, the...