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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday October 21 2018, @06:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the salty-about-plastic dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Microplastics were found in sea salt several years ago. But how extensively plastic bits are spread throughout the most commonly used seasoning remained unclear. Now, 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. Using prior salt studies, this new effort is the first of its scale to look at the geographical spread of microplastics in table salt and their correlation to where plastic pollution is found in the environment.

"The findings suggest that human ingestion of microplastics via marine products is strongly related to emissions in a given region," said Seung-Kyu Kim, a marine science professor at Incheon National University in South Korea.

[...] The new study, she says, "shows us that microplastics are ubiquitous. It's not a matter of if you are buying sea salt in England, you are safe."

The new study estimates that the average adult consumes approximately 2,000 microplastics per year through salt. What that means remains a mystery.

A separate study by the University of York in Britain that sought to assess the risks of microplastics to the environment, published Wednesday, concluded not enough is known to determine if microplastics cause harm.

[...] That new study, funded by the Personal Care Products Council, an industry trade group, was published in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Boxall added that the focus on microplastics may divert attention from worse environmental (and more easily identifiable) pollution problems, such as small particles released from car tires.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by woodcruft on Sunday October 21 2018, @01:42PM

    by woodcruft (6528) on Sunday October 21 2018, @01:42PM (#751645)

    So OK, fine.. sea salt is borked. But we already *knew* that anyhow, right? Because table salt has something else in it. Iodine. In Canada, it's law. Iodine MUST be added to table salt. In the US, it's not law -- but fairly standard. And why? Well, you can NOT, absolutely not get enough iodine without marine life... and no, an occasional tuna sandwich won't cut it. And without enough iodine? Birth defects. Issues with the thyroid. Issues for children.

    In the UK we get most of our daily iodine requirement from milk.

    Apparently this happened largely by accident. During the '30s it was decided by the government ministry, to specify what feed for cows should contain & I guess some vet thought it should contain iodine, so it did.

    As a result, excess iodine was expressed in the cow's milk which was then drunk by humans.

    Result: goitre, cretinism and hypothyroidism prevalence dropped like a stone!

    I listened to a clinical epidemiologist talk about it on the BBC World Service. She also mentioned that she had looked at IQ results for kids. The children of vegan mothers tended to have lowered IQs and she reckoned it was due to subclinical congenital cretinism. ie. because mum didn't drink milk they were short of iodine. During the winter months the average person gets some 70% of their iodine from milk; it's less during the rest of the year because the cows are out to pasture and hence consuming less man-made feed.

    So we're on a downward trend: braindead 'dedicated follower of fashion' mother becomes vegan to 'save the planet' and produces even more braindead progeny.

    Fermi's Paradox is because of vegans ;)

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