Sea salt has been used as a natural flavoring for centuries and boasts a handful of benefits, including boosting proper brain function and maintaining digestive health. However, new research shows that the popular mineral has been contaminated by plastic pollution. Furthermore, the contamination appears to be global, with it popping up in in the UK, France and Spain, as well as China and now the U.S.
How does this happen?
The United Nations states that up to 12.7 million tons of plastic – such as water bottles — enters the world’s oceans each year. That’s equal to dumping one garbage truck of plastic every minute.
“Not only are plastics pervasive in our society in terms of daily use, but they are pervasive in the environment,” said Sherri Mason, a professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia, who led the latest research into plastic contamination in salt. Plastics are “ubiquitous, in the air, water, the seafood we eat, the beer we drink, the salt we use – plastics are just everywhere”.
Along with researchers at the University of Minnesota, Mason examined micro plastics found in 12 different kinds of salt – from U.S. grocery stores — beer and drinking water, The Guardian reports.
The significance?
Americans could be ingesting up about 660 particles of plastic each year — assuming they adhere to expert guidelines to eat no more than 2,300 milligrams (mgs) per day. Because the average American’s sodium intake is so excessive, they could be downing much more.
The health impact?
Although unknown, as scientists have been unable to construct a control group of individuals who have not been exposed, there is growing concern that “everybody is being exposed to some degree at any given time, from gestation through death,” researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Arizona State University wrote in 2013. “Detectable levels of [the plastic] bisphenol A have been found in the urine of 95% of the adult population of the United States.”
Keep in mind, plastics such as BPA (also known as bisphenol) is used in everything from shatter-resistant plastic water bottles, food storage containers, cash register receipts, canned food, and coffee cans to beer kegs. It’s almost impossible to avoid.
In 2015, plastics were found in salt in China. Particles from face scrubs, cosmetics, shards of plastic bottles were discovered in samples of 15 salt products found in Chinese grocery stores.
Toxic effects of ingesting BPA have been linked to:
“It is not that sea salt in China is worse than sea salt in America, it’s that all sea salt – because it’s all coming from the same origins – is going to have a consistent problem,” said Mason. “I think that is what we’re seeing.”
Researchers hope?
“I hope what comes from this is not that [consumers] just switch brands and try to find something that’s table salt or mined salt,” Mason said. “People want to disconnect, and say, ‘It’s OK if I go to Starbucks every day and get that disposable coffee cup …’ We have to focus on the flow of plastic and the pervasiveness of plastics in our society and find other materials to be using instead.”
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