Researchers have found blue denim in sediment samples from the remote Arctic Ocean in northern Canada.
The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Toronto and was reported by Wired, and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.
This finding indicates that jeans tissue ended up there through long-range transfers, whether oceanic or aerial, "we don't know exactly," said ecologist Sam Athy, co-lead author of the study at the University of Toronto.
These blue jeans fibers are technically known as "Anthropogenically modified cellulose".
The researchers looked at sediment samples from many places, including the deep sea in the Arctic and shallow lakes in the suburbs around Toronto, Lake Huron and Greater Ontario.
The average number of microfibers that they found per kilogram of dry sediment in each group, respectively: 1930, 2,490, and 780.
The researchers also collected effluent from two sewage treatment plants that filter some - but not all - of the microfibers, before pumping the water into Lake Ontario.
This has resulted in them reaching an even more surprising number: these two plants alone can dump a billion fine fibers of "denim" daily into the lake, and this is in line with the country's washing habits, with about half of Canada's population wearing jeans almost every day, and the Canadian washing. Ordinary jeans after wearing it only twice.
This discovery is an example of the large and extensive human impact on the environment.