Japanese researchers blame air pollution from China for elevated mercury levels at the top of Mount Fuji, AFP reports:
“Whenever readings were high, winds were blowing from the continent (China),” Osamu Nagafuchi, the lead scientist on the study, said on Thursday.
Fuji was chosen “because it’s a place unaffected by urban pollution”, said Nagafuchi, an environmental science professor at the University of Shiga Prefecture.
[…] The higher-than-expected readings are likely due to Chinese factories burning coal, which releases mercury and other toxic elements – such as arsenic – which were also elevated, Nagafuchi said. [Source]
Chinese pollution has become yet another point of contention in the two countries’ fraught relations, having also been blamed for damaging forests on the island of Yakushima and ruining school trips in Kyushu.
