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The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389420319944?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03043
by barbegal 4y ago
The actual study is here https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389420319944?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030438942...
The study presents three scenarios assuming different assumptions about the mass of plastic particles. In the worst case scenario, where I think the assumptions are bad, they estimate 5g of plastic per week. In the other two scenarios which used more complex but more realistic modelling they estimate 0.15 and 0.3g of plastic consumed per week so only a credit card sized amount per year.
In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt.
- hammock 4y agoWhy is there so much in salt?
- Enginerrrd 4y agoLikely because it is derived from seawater which is swimming in tiny plastic particles.
- mrguyorama 4y agoMy understanding that a significant amount of salt that is not advertised as "Sea Salt" is still mined out of the ground.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- maxerickson 4y agoYeah, If I remember right it is pretty much that if you can't see plastic in the water you drink the assumptions that the credit card/week is based on are wrong.
- tomthe 4y agoI can't take anyone seriously who publishes a pie-chart like this: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0304389420319944-gr3_lrg.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S03043894203199...
- palijer 4y agoThat seems a rather arbitrary trait to dismiss a researcher for. It is possible to be correct with flawed design choices.
- tomthe 4y agoYes, you are of course right. One shouldn't dismiss good work because of some flaws. But anyway... this is a rather silly pie chart and I wonder how this was able to pass through multiple authors and peer-review.
- civilized 4y agoThe popular conception of science is really outdated in this respect. Peer review still matters, but most meaningful peer review happens post-publication, not pre-publication. People should not take published papers as reliable statements of "what the science says". Scientists are not going to expend a lot of effort on the thankless work of peer review, taking time away from their own careers, purely out of professional integrity and the goodness of their hearts. And their competency to do so is uneven at best anyway. What happens when the people who wrote this paper review other people's data?
- kylebenzle 4y agoCan ANYONE actually say what is wrong with it? I see no issue other than ascetically it could be better but it shows the data correctly.
- slim 4y agothat pie chart to the left is not poor design choice. it demonstrates actual incompetency.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- trzy 4y agoWhy? The labels are given in absolute units but they are correct.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agonice. >In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt. for a few years now we have switched to rock salt completely at home. it's like 20-40% more expensive and we have to use a hammer/grinder every month or so but we are doing that. by reducing say 90% of the microplastics, is that.. good?
- sva_ 4y agoI also switched to "Himalaya" (Pakistani) salt, hoping that is low in microplastics.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agoyep. the exact same thing. i get to buy them in huge 5 Kg rocks because its just a few hundred km away but that is the reason.
- Arrath 4y agoHonestly that's kinda cool. And I refuse to imagine anything but a melon sized hunk 'o salt on the dinner table, with a small hammer and chisel for those who want to salt their meal.
- sva_ 4y agoI think if you keep the salt exposed at the atmosphere, you'll quickly run into the problem of it absorbing a lot of water.
- Arrath 4y agoQuite. I learned this the hard way when I moved to a place with a swamp cooler. My salt lamp started weeping brine and salt sludge onto my side table.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agonah. we arent those kinds of brutes. we simply buy a big hunk, every other month on a sunday spend time with a hammer and break it down to small pieces. then use a food processor to powder it
- matthewdgreen 4y agoWhat’s worrying about this is that we’re about 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, and is also affecting lab animals fed controlled diets. It would be fascinating if this was all correlated with a common environmental contaminant, and the increasing use of various plastics could line up well.
- logicchains 4y agoIt's got an incredibly simple explanation, if you look at a graph of average daily calorie intake by year.
- Terry_Roll 4y ago> 50 years into an unexplained epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease that nobody has a clear explanation for, I think you need to look at how the food has changed in this time. For example, here in the UK supermarkets dont want pigs with 1 1/2" of back fat so the farmer get the nutritionist to make up a diet low in vitamin B5 because it helps to shift the fat under the skin. Nett result, you have fatty organs and marbleized meat as the fat remains else where in the body. We can grow chickens in half the time it took to grow them in the 70's, chemicals in the environment remain in the body for years even lifetimes, pollution levels are at their highest in a generation, people dont exercise like they used to.
- jnwatson 4y agoRight but it happens to our pets too.
- Terry_Roll 4y agoFood generally is not as nutritious as it was 50years ago, its going to affect alot of animals.
- formerly_proven 4y ago> pollution levels are at their highest in a generation Try looking out the window in a 1970s city.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoEating a credit card full of plastic per year sounds totally natural. Nothing to worry about!
- kbelder 4y agoI'm sure we eat that much silica powder.. what makes a granule of plastic worse? I'm not discounting the potential problem of microplastics, but I'm not seeing a clear description of what it actually does to a person. Embed and raise cancer risk?
- filoeleven 4y agoSilica powder is basically inert. Plastics don’t have that same guarantee. Some of them are endocrine disrupters, like BPA.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoFor me it’s about baseline assumptions. When I’m eating food, I should assume that I’m not eating anything my great-grandmother would not recognize as food.
- rgrieselhuber 4y agoAmazing that this is objectionable.
- thrwy_918 4y ago>In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt. I know nothing about anything, but could salt be heat-treated to burn off plastic?
- jpindar 4y agoI think salt is heat-treated to dry it, but I don't know how hot it gets.
- quantum_magpie 4y agoTo properly burn plastic you need temps >1000 degC. Salt melts at 800 degC. If you vaporize plastic at lower temperature you release very nasty toxins.
- busterarm 4y agoThis is one of the biggest claims ("no microplastics") made about Korean bamboo salt...
- throw8383833jj 4y agoi knew salt was bad for you but this is nuts. Normally salt isn't bad for you if you consume it in the right quantities < 1500g/day. but, knowing it's got plastic in it, is troubling.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- carlmr 4y ago>In these scenarios (0.15g and 0.3g) about 90% they estimate comes from salt. I tried to find this, but all I could see was that it would mostly come from bottled water, shellfish, and plastic packaged food.