"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?"
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?
This is only one source of microplastics, but in 2015 Obama signed signed the Microbead-Free Waters Act, banning plastic microbeads in cosmetics and personal care products. Seems smart to target the source instead of monitor and clean up afterwards.
"Politics" in practice is a way to give the people something to argue about that is related to, but fundamentally separate from, the real decisions being made.
It's best if we're arguing about useless memes while real decisions are made or else we might question those decisions.
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.
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.
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!
A lot of the salt (~80%) produced in the US goes to road salt and chemical industries. For roads it's better if it's in rock form, so a lot (if not most) is mined. For chemical industry they can often re-use brining wells to hold other things later, so the great majority of chemical salt is brined.
Of all the salt production methods, non-brine mined salts have the least toxic or harmful byproducts - at the source. But they still go through processing plants to sift, grind and package the salt, and not every processing plant has the same quality standards. If you wanted to get really picky about it you should choose a mined, non-brine, non-processed, non-refined salt produced at a facility that follows modern standards. The easiest to identify would be "himalayan" salt, but many countries have ancient lake/sea beds and mine and produce salt in the same way.
In general, you can't tell how salt was produced unless the company very explicitly tells you. Even kosher and sea salt sometimes is processed or refined with additives or in a way that could introduce MPs. (In case it helps, only some places like Australia and the mediterranean have the right environment to solar-evaporate sea salt at a commercial scale)
> 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 :)
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.
It tastes good indeed, but in figure 3, France had 5 other brands containing some plastic polymers and/or pigment particles ... I now wonder from which brand is that F sample (clue : apparently packaged in a Glass container)
Anyway the conclusion rather place the problem, not on the consumption of those salts, but in the gradual accumulation in products from the aquatic environments.
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?
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.
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-... ) 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?
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.
[+] [-] jknoepfler|9 years ago|reply
"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|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zbjornson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|9 years ago|reply
It's best if we're arguing about useless memes while real decisions are made or else we might question those decisions.
[+] [-] abeppu|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] 13of40|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|9 years ago|reply
so you can have 9 whole insects in a pound of cornmeal and still be in the clear?
[+] [-] mirimir|9 years ago|reply
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|9 years ago|reply
> 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!
[+] [-] peterwwillis|9 years ago|reply
A lot of the salt (~80%) produced in the US goes to road salt and chemical industries. For roads it's better if it's in rock form, so a lot (if not most) is mined. For chemical industry they can often re-use brining wells to hold other things later, so the great majority of chemical salt is brined.
Salt mines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_mining
Of all the salt production methods, non-brine mined salts have the least toxic or harmful byproducts - at the source. But they still go through processing plants to sift, grind and package the salt, and not every processing plant has the same quality standards. If you wanted to get really picky about it you should choose a mined, non-brine, non-processed, non-refined salt produced at a facility that follows modern standards. The easiest to identify would be "himalayan" salt, but many countries have ancient lake/sea beds and mine and produce salt in the same way.
In general, you can't tell how salt was produced unless the company very explicitly tells you. Even kosher and sea salt sometimes is processed or refined with additives or in a way that could introduce MPs. (In case it helps, only some places like Australia and the mediterranean have the right environment to solar-evaporate sea salt at a commercial scale)
[+] [-] vmarsy|9 years ago|reply
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|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] FoeNyx|9 years ago|reply
Anyway the conclusion rather place the problem, not on the consumption of those salts, but in the gradual accumulation in products from the aquatic environments.
[+] [-] rodionos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sengork|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ribs|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bricss|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrodust|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] craigds|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|9 years ago|reply
This is significant how?
[+] [-] astrodust|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] martyvis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zbyte64|9 years ago|reply