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Microplastics Found In 90 Percent of Table Salt (nationalgeographic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from National Geographic: New research shows microplastics in 90 percent of the table salt brands sampled worldwide. Of 39 salt brands tested, 36 had microplastics in them, according to a new analysis by researchers in South Korea and Greenpeace East Asia. Salt samples from 21 countries in Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia were analyzed. The three brands that did not contain microplastics are from Taiwan (refined sea salt), China (refined rock salt), and France (unrefined sea salt produced by solar evaporation). The study was published this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
The density of microplastics found in salt varied dramatically among different brands, but those from Asian brands were especially high, the study found. The highest quantities of microplastics were found in salt sold in Indonesia. Asia is a hot spot for plastic pollution, and Indonesia -- with 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of coastline -- ranked in an unrelated 2015 study as suffering the second-worst level of plastic pollution in the world. In another indicator of the geographic density of plastic pollution, microplastics levels were highest in sea salt, followed by lake salt and then rock salt. Even though the study found that the average adult consumes approximately 2,000 microplastics per year through salt, it's not clear what the health consequences are.
The density of microplastics found in salt varied dramatically among different brands, but those from Asian brands were especially high, the study found. The highest quantities of microplastics were found in salt sold in Indonesia. Asia is a hot spot for plastic pollution, and Indonesia -- with 34,000 miles (54,720 km) of coastline -- ranked in an unrelated 2015 study as suffering the second-worst level of plastic pollution in the world. In another indicator of the geographic density of plastic pollution, microplastics levels were highest in sea salt, followed by lake salt and then rock salt. Even though the study found that the average adult consumes approximately 2,000 microplastics per year through salt, it's not clear what the health consequences are.
Salt is bad for you!
Are there any health implications of micro plastics in salt? That was suspiciously left out of the article for some reason.
The study with its summary was linked in the submission:
A wide range of MP content (in number of MPs per kg of salt; n/kg) was found: 0–1674 n/kg (excluding one outlier of 13629 n/kg) in sea salts, 0–148 n/kg in rock salt, and 28–462 n/kg in lake salt.
It might not necessarily be from the ocean or salt collection itself; could just be part of processing that is adding the micro plastic.
If that were true how would you explain that they found that sea salt consistently had a higher concentration vs rock salt and lake salt? If it's due to the dispenser how would the concentrations always be higher from sources that are known to have a higher concentration ot microplastics?
Also why would the concentrations be higher in salt from Asia?
Cancer yes, Autism, No.
The reason the microplastics are finding their way in, in the first place is due to plastic in the damn packaging. Salt, is just like sand, it will grind the coating off anything it touches, that includes plastic liners, pipes, cups, and so forth.
At the current point in time, I think news like this is just going to push people away from buying salt, but does nothing about commercial uses of salt (think pre-packaged cooked goods.)
...with a grain of salt!
If if and if.
But currently it's a buzz word with no known (good, bad or ugly) health implications. Also, what's the dosage from fish? Beef? Tap water?
For plastics that don't dissolve in the stomach, particle size could matter greatly. For those that do, the bigger concern is what they break down into and if that's toxic.
The article is horrible...i thought NatGeo was better than this kind of fear-mongering faux-science crap. The study I'm even less interested in given who it's authored by. Greenpeace is among the top-tier nonsense media out there.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
If you read the abstract of the original paper the typical amount found was on the order of 100 nanograms in 1Kg of salt. To put that in perspective that is 1e-10. That is .00000000001 of a kg. There is probably that amount of pretty much anything you can think of in a kilo of salt. Will it do any harm? Extremely unlikely. This focus on micro plastics is weird. It is meaningless FUD.
Interesting thought, especially if the zero plastic containing anonymous French sample was from the market leader, because that comes in cardboard boxes.
Sigh.
Cancer's what you die of if you don't die of anything else. Sure there are things that increase your chances of cancer (i.e. shit that kills you faster), but cancer rates increasing means nothing - it means you didn't die of all the other stuff, basically.
Autism - that's been around forever, but never been categorised and recorded. That's why all the graphs for diagnosis of it go up. It took until the late 90's to get a standardised definition that wasn't constantly having other things lumped into it (i.e. ASD instead of ten different conditions), or wasn't just an unspecified "psychiatric" condition. Plus there's evidence it's genetic.
Obesity rates are to do an overabundance of food and a lack of self-control. Grown adults filling fridges full of crap. You want to find the cause of that, open your own fridge.
What microplastics would have to do with any of them, I wouldn't be able to fathom. But, hey, I just have a degree in maths and can read papers and statistics properly.
Microplastics are a good anti-caking agent in salt.
No. Have you? My time is worth more than a Slashdot comment pays.
Tell me, do you have the same kind of evidence to the contrary? Or even anything that hints at that? Because something so pervasive (no dispute there) and damaging as you claim would show up, no?
I don't need to do your homework for you to hypothesise that this is a for-eyeballs article which - although probably true in the extent of microplastic invasion - is completely misleading... like the "you've breathed a molecule from Caesar's dying breathe" kinda thing.
There is zero evidence, for example, that such microplastic presence, even in a human body, has any significant statistical correlation whatsoever to anything. And it would be quite easy to test, and check historical data for that. It would show, I would hypothesise, in coastal populations, especially those who swim or drink seawater (refined or not) compared to those who drink from frreshwater sources, and increase rapidly from the 1950's onwards as plastics became mainstream.
Unfortunately for you, the rate for a decent scientist to perform such a study or analysis with any amount of rigour is outside your (and my) means.
Tell me, have you read every medical paper that doesn't mention microplastics to see if the effects measured could be down to microplastics? No? Why? Because that's fecking ridiculous argument.
Way to misunderstand the point. The point being made is that eventually, live long enough and you are likely to get and possibly eventually die from cancer. The same is not true for AIDS which is more or less completely preventable.
If 90% of table salt people are using all the time has microplastics in it, then it clearly has no negative health effects, or else with such a massive experimental group, we'd have seen negative results already. :)
No, all that proves is that whatever effects there might be are not acutely toxic. It's quite possible there may be long term effects or mild effects or effects that only impact a portion of the population or perhaps no impact at all. We just don't know at this point. It's not unusual at all for mild chemical pollution (which this is) to have health implications that are not noticed for some time. Right now we have essentially no clue if these things will actually be harmful but we would be foolish not to take the possibility seriously. Becoming aware of the presence of a potential problem is the first step in dealing with it. We are just recently becoming aware there may be a serious issue and that further research is warranted.
When trying to pull an opinion out of one's ass in an educated manner, I find it helps to consider what potential mechanisms exist for harm. Since animals and humans ingest all sorts of inedible or partially inedible materials (like plant fiber), plants can uptake sand/silica and so on, small particulates of inedible organic material should be relatively 'normal'. So, microplastics in food should be less harmful than if they were, say, aerosolized and inhaled. Maybe not necessarily good, but probably no worse than eating vegetables from your garden that will have dirt, small bits of chitin from bugs, and other detritus you can't digest. To know for sure, you'd want to see if they dissolve into our blood when we eat them and, if so, then do a study with lab animals and go from there. Without considering mechanism, we would run around trying to prove that looking at yellow post-its doesn't give you eye cancer.