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Comment by myshpa | Hacker News Reader

Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...

The presence of microplastics in commercial salts from different countries [2017]

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46173

Global Pattern of Microplastics (MPs) in Commercial Food-Grade Salts: Sea Salt as an Indicator of Seawater MP Pollution [2018]

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.8b04180

Microplastic pollution in commercial salt for human consumption: A review [2019]

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331006661_Microplas...

"MPs have been found in commercial salts from 128 brands, from 38 different countries spanning over five continents."

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thank you for the information, for sure, but i was responding to the claim that sea salt "needs cleaning" to point out that that seasalt isn't being cleaned, so it puts an upper bound on the value of need as it concerns the commercial market including govt regulation. My suspicion was that where would be more to worry about from single-celled life detritus, heavy metals, forever chemicals etc, but the marketplace doesn't seem to be worried about that.

I go about my daily life not worrying about microplastics (I know they are ubiquitous, and I'm not in favor of them, I just don't worry about them) Are microplastics known to cause particular diseases, or just suspected on the grounds that they "couldn't be good"? plastic is pretty inert which is why it remains around for so long, and while it is made from toxic things, it's generally considered safe. I'm just curious about actual microplastic effects rather than the sort of "it's estrogenizing our boys, antivax...er-plastic" suspicions.

Well they carry all sorts of bad stuff, and recently have been found to cross blood brain barrier.

> plastic is pretty inert which is why it remains around for so long, and while it is made from toxic things, it's generally considered safe.

This is very ignorant. plastics release a wide variety of organic compounds.

"Most plastic products, from sippy cups to food wraps, can release chemicals that act like the sex hormone estrogen, according to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives. The study found these chemicals even in products that didn't contain BPA, a compound in certain plastics that's been widely criticized because it mimics estrogen."

Which is why you see plastic change - look at old plastics around you, in shoes, food containers and fabrics - it becomes brittle, changes colour, etc.

really unfortunate how easy it is to channel fud.

for instance, the "can release" weasel words here - technically correct, but also misleading.

it is not the case that all changes you see in plastics are because they're releasing nasty (((chemicals))) into the environment. it is routine to engineer plastics to meet arbitrary emission/contamination standards. different kinds of plastics also require different (or no) such additives. mostly, people are thinking of PVC when they worry about this.

The problem is that if you are a common joe, you cannot know which is which. .So you have to assume that a random product will be leeching

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