{"id":22640,"date":"2018-10-19T11:52:42","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T10:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=22640"},"modified":"2018-10-19T11:52:42","modified_gmt":"2018-10-19T10:52:42","slug":"do-you-want-some-plastic-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/do-you-want-some-plastic-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you want some plastic with that?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/18975\/over-90-of-sampled-salt-brands-globally-found-to-contain-microplastics\/\">new research study<\/a>, it has been found that over 90% of worldwide salt brands have contaminated their salt with plastic. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Having the word \u2018sea\u2019 on the packaging does not make your salt better if anything it increases the chances of ingesting plastic, as the highest levels of plastic were found within sea salt. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This research revealed that only\u00a03 out of 39 salt brands were plastic free, and all the rest were filled with microplastics the size of a sesame seed. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plastic rubbish getting dumped into the oceans are the reason for this contamination, as it gets broken down into tiny pieces due to friction. When creating sea salt, companies use evaporation of the ocean water, and this leaves behind trace materials mixed within the grains of salt.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22650\" style=\"width: 750px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/10\/photo-1538208282481-ef3bf95386eb.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-22650\" class=\"wp-image-22650 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/10\/photo-1538208282481-ef3bf95386eb-1024x710.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"740\" height=\"513\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-22650\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This recent study shows how vast this problem has become and how fast companies need to react in order to reduce their plastic use. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/18975\/over-90-of-sampled-salt-brands-globally-found-to-contain-microplastics\/\">East Asia Greenpeace campaigner, Mikyoung Kim,<\/a> said: \u201cRecent studies have found plastics in seafood, wildlife, tap water, and now in salt. It\u2019s clear that there is no escape from this plastics crisis, especially as it continues to leak into our waterways and oceans,\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u201cWe need to stop plastic pollution at its source,&#8221; said Kim. &#8220;For the health of people and our environment, it\u2019s incredibly important that corporations reduce their reliance on throwaway plastics immediately.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Words: Victoria Locke | Subbing: Katherine Cenaj<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new research study, it has been found that over 90% of worldwide salt brands have contaminated their salt with plastic. Having the word \u2018sea\u2019 on the packaging does not make your salt better&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":22643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,67,82],"tags":[231,2439,2893,4903,4936,5417],"class_list":["post-22640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-health-fitness","category-lifestyle","tag-231","tag-food","tag-health","tag-plastic","tag-pollution","tag-salt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}