
The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries - r721
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173
======
jknoepfler
The conclusion of the article:

"The results of this study did not show a significant load of MPs larger than
149 μm in salts originating from 8 different countries and, therefore,
negligible health risks associated with the consumption of salts. The
increasing trend of plastic use and disposal50, however, might lead to the
gradual accumulation of MPs in the oceans and lakes and, therefore, in
products from the aquatic environments. This should necessitate the regular
quantification and characterization of MPs in various sea products."

Is interesting to me, because I feel like this is where environments politics
properly starts. Should the US federal government (insert your home gov't, or
the EU, or whatever) fund regular monitoring for micro plastic levels? Maybe!
it's a hard cost/benefit question that involves weighing priorities and
careful thinking. But that's the kind of question we should be asking when it
comes to environmental politics, not "should the EPA exist," or "is climate
change real?"

~~~
btown
Obviously every state should build their own parallel monitoring program with
its own duplicated bureaucracy and time spent developing regulations. Because
obviously people in New York and people in Alabama have different levels of
plastic tolerance. Heck, I hear people in Alaska like plastic in their fish!
Why are we taking away their rights?

~~~
true_religion
Foreign products arrive in a country at specific locations---most likely large
seaports. Impounding and stamping these products as having X standard or Y
standard isn't very different if the standards body is the singular federal
government, or applying 5-10 different standards levied by states.

Also, even if there is a federal standard, the states themselves are always
free to set greater limitations---for example federal emissions controls on
cars, versus California emission controls.

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abeppu
Does it seem really low that they only extracted 72 particles? In their
methods section they mention using 1kg of salt from each of the 17 brands.

Skimming FDA guidelines for defects in food, I see "action levels" like
"average of 2 or more rodent hairs per 50g" for ground pepper, or "average of
1 or more whole insects per 50 grams" for cornmeal. 72 particles in 17 kg of
salt sounds really shockingly clean given all the stuff in the oceans.

~~~
gruez
>"average of 1 or more whole insects per 50 grams" for cornmeal

so you can have 9 whole insects in a pound of cornmeal and still be in the
clear?

~~~
washadjeffmad
Not really, because of high internal industry standards. The FDA guideline is
a federal minimum baseline for quality to establish fitness against varying
state standards during interstate commerce.

It's partly to deter and punish dealing in adulterated bulk or raw domestic
products, partly for consumer protection, and partly a way to protect everyone
along the supply chain where state laws might fail.

~~~
jessaustin
I've found lots of insects in both cornmeal and wheat flour. It has never
really been a problem. When I find them I sift them out.

~~~
coldpie
My policy is, ignorance is bliss :-)

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mirimir
I guess that's reassuring.

But I wonder how much salt is mined. Only one sample was plastic-free. But
maybe it's mostly commingled. If one were really interested, one could look at
plastic content vs Cl-36 (nuclear fallout) level.

~~~
microcolonel
I don't know about their selection, but most table salt here is pumped out of
the ground in Windsor. When I want coarse salt I just mix some table salt with
water and dry it like seawater.

> The size of the smallest particle was 160 μm and the largest sized 980 μm.

This was shocking to me, that they could miss a millimetre-scale particle of
plastic in salt seems bonkers. I mean, you can more or less just filter things
that size!

~~~
mentalpiracy
Just to clarify for you, their selection study was purely sea and lake salts.

~~~
mirimir
OK, so I just went back and read carefully about that point. I don't think
that they actually say _clearly_ that they looked only at sea and lake salt.
They talk about contamination pathways for sea and lake salt. And they mention
lake salt from Malaysia and Iran. But Methods has:

> A total of 17 brands of salt from Australia, France, Iran, Japan, Malaysia,
> New Zealand, Portugal, and South Africa were purchased from a Malaysian
> market.

~~~
mentalpiracy
Very first paragraph of the introduction.

> Accordingly, it is expected that products originating from the contaminated
> water bodies are also loaded with MPs.

This sentence is the entire premise of the study. Testing non-waterbody-
derived salts would not provide any valid data in pursuit of that hypothesis.

Furthermore the entire body of the abstract, introduction, and discussion
discusses marine microparticles, impacts on aquatic health, and whatnot.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
That confirms that they _assume_ all their table salt is from water. I have
only skimmed the article, so I may be missing something, but the only origin
information I saw was country of origin and that they "were purchased from a
Malaysian market". If the researchers actually confirmed that each brand came
from water and not a mine, they don't mention that that I can see. If I've
missed something, please let me know.

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vmarsy
> The abundance of MPs per salt sample ranged from 0 per kg in the salt sample
> # France-F (i.e. Country of origin: France, brand F) to 10 in the salt
> sample # Portugal-N

I guess I'll keep buying the French Gros Sel de Guérande from world market,
plus the fact that it tastes really good when sprinkled on meat :)

~~~
matt4077
I happen to be trading in a fair bit of Fleur de Sel from Guérande, and can
assure you that any difference between Portugal and our product can only be
either chance, or almost deliberate efforts to sabotage the Portuguese
product.

They both start with the same "raw material": water of the Northern Atlantic,
which I would think is mixed enough not be significantly different in these
two locations. Guérande is probably one of the largest locations for sea salt,
but the processes are far away from industrial scale. They manually remove
contamination that they see, but I've found a few fish in the salt.
Contamination at the millimetre-scale is tested for, but there are no
filtration processes in place to reduce them.

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rodionos
Based on the chart at the bottom: salt from Australia and Portugal has the
highest content of plastics.

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sengork
Testing himalayan pink salt within this study would have been good for
comparison (sea vs non-sea source of salt).

~~~
ribs
I think it's all sea salt, just varying by how recently it was in the sea.

~~~
astrodust
Yeah, all salt is sea salt. If it's up in the mountains it just means it was
laid down a long time ago.

That salt _should_ be free of microplastics, but hell, you never know what's
what these days. Some of the most polluted areas in the world are off of
Antarctica.

------
bricss
You will be probably surprised how many plastics you can find inside a shrimps
or any other sea creatures guts.

~~~
astrodust
Some seagulls are 50% plastic by weight.

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craigds
Crazy X axes on those graphs.

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JoeAltmaier
Let me understand: this substance in the salt came from the sea, where it came
from drains that contained flushed facial scrubs. So this stuff that is made
to _rub on your face by the hundreds of thousands or millions_ is present in
salt by ones and twos _per pound_? Did I read that right?

This is significant how?

~~~
astrodust
You read it wrong or you didn't even read it. The article is talking about
particles far tinier than the kind in those facial scrubs.

The origin of these microplastics is likely "biodegradable" plastic material
which rather than reverting to some harmless form, simply breaks up in to
trillions of microscopic pieces.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
149um or larger is right in the ballpark for 'micro beads' which are anything
smaller than 2mm. Of course I read it (thanks for the slam though!)

As for 'reverting to some harmless form' that's exactly what is taking place.
Particles the same size (or exactly the same particles) as micro-beads in face
wash (which have been tested and proven safe) are present in microscopic
quantities. So what?

Again I ask, how is this significant?

------
martyvis
From the introduction "Microplastics might be of health concern since they
have been shown to carry hazardous chemicals and microorganisms.". So it is
still a might whether it is a concern. We all eat, drink and breathe
"chemicals" everyday. Everything from dihydrogen monoxide (http;//dhmo.org )
to Julius Caesar's urine
([http://redneckmath.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/drinking-
caesars-...](http://redneckmath.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/drinking-caesars-
urine.html?m=1) ) to things like particulate carbon, lead, virii, bacteria and
more things that actually are known to be bad. Our bodies are amazingly good
at filtering or otherwise ignoring such attacks. Any idea whether we will know
whether microplastics actually are bad, or just a visible distraction?

~~~
zbyte64
Our bodies are good at filtering because those of our ancestors that couldn't,
didn't reproduce. We could become equally good at handling lead if we just
removed those pesky regulations.

~~~
true_religion
His two most prominent example are DHMO and Ceasers' Urine, both commonly
known as "water".

Yes, we are very good at "filtering" water, and have even managed to evolve to
use this potentially harmful chemical as a biological cooling mechanism
(sweat).

Who knows what we'd be able to do with lead in our systems? I'm betting on
protection against pesky UV radiation, or maybe kryptonite.

