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CBC reports that Thayer’s Rachel Obbard discovered by accident that Arctic sea ice is polluted with microplastics.

The assistant professor of engineering had melted some of the ice in order to count the microscopic algae living under it, CBC reports. When she discovered the microplastic contamination, she tells CBC, “I was really shocked and saddened. I guess I, like most people, still consider the Arctic to be a pristine and remote area, and clearly, our pollution has reached even it.”

Read the full story, published 5/30/14 by CBC.