Research comparing Adirondack mountain lakes in New York suggests foot traffic is significant source of pollution
Hiking shoes and outdoor gear are likely a significant source of microplastic pollution in the wilderness, new research that checked for the pernicious material in several Adirondack mountain lakes in upstate New York suggests.
Researchers measured microplastic levels in two lakes that are the among highest sources of water for the Hudson River – one that sees heavy foot traffic from hikers, and another lake that is far away from a path and rarely touched by human activity.
The samples from the lake that sees heavier foot traffic showed levels that were about 23 times higher.
Goretex is Teflon! Teflon never degrades, causes cancer!
This study only proves that human activity sheds microplastics. How are they making the claim that the source of the plastics is from hiking gear? It could be food wrappers, microplastic in our excrement, really any other human activity.
Microplastics are also in the rain. So I’m not sure we should be worried about hiking gear at this point.
Single use plastics for non-medical uses should be taxed out of existence.
It falls to the earth in rain and snow. That’s probably a more insurmountable threat than backpacks.
I was gonna say… isn’t this just in the air and rain now?
Yes. And most of it comes from tire dust. Not hiking equipment. Some tire companies are working on reformulating to try to solve this.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/07/heres-how-michelin-plans-to-make-its-tires-more-renewable/
Yeah its more of the same “carbon footprint” (pun intended) rhetoric pushed by the biggest polluters of the planet.
“Look Look the plebs are the evil ones, not us the poor innocent billionaire corpos”
Meanwhile every day the rain probably drops a billion times more than all hiking boots combined.
Fine. Let’s hike naked!
PNW hikers: “Was that not an option already?”
I was on a hike years ago very early in the morning, only one other car at the trail head. On the way up, spotted the only other dude hiking naked except for shoes and a backpack.
I’m not bothered by the naked as much as the idea of getting mosquito bites on my balls. Fuck that noise.
If you keep moving the mosquitoes won’t catch you, unless you’re somewhere insane like Siberia. Dude like that probably has his balls covered in OFF!.
Also, funny trick I keep trying, and it works. Hold your breath and walk quickly. They no longer have a lock on your CO2 and will drop back. My lungs are jacked from smoking in my youth, can’t go too far.
Naked I could do, but hiking without shoes sounds terrible
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Leather moccasons it is then.
Macro plastics are also brought into the wilderness on hiking shoes and gear.
Makes sense. Lots of rain gear and tents use teflon in their waterproof coatings. That shit sheds worse than a malamute in spring.
