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Microplastics in Salt and Drinking Water
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This review summarizes microplastic contamination in salt and drinking water globally, covering geographic variation, processing and packaging as entry points, and the urgent need for harmonized sampling and detection methods to enable meaningful cross-study comparison of human exposure.
Microplastics have become a widespread environmental pollutant. They have entered the food chain via marine and freshwater aquatic food sources, sea salt, and drinking water, posing a threat to human food safety and health. At present, limited global information is available on microplastic contamination in drinking water. Variations in microplastic contamination in drinking water from different sources may result due to geographic location, seasonality, source water, processing techniques, packaging materials, and transport methods. In bottled drinking water, packaging materials, carbonization, bottle age, cleaning processes, and reusability of bottles are considered major entry paths for microplastics. Commercial salts can also be considered a long-term human exposure route to microplastics. Accurate and harmonized practices to sample, extract, and detect microplastics allow comparability of results among researchers, leading to better access to their impact on human health.
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Researchers analyzed 17 commercial salt brands from eight countries and found microplastic particles in all but one, with concentrations ranging from 1 to 10 particles per kilogram. The most common plastics were polypropylene and polyethylene, appearing mainly as fragments. While the estimated human intake from salt alone appears minimal, the study confirms that microplastics have infiltrated yet another everyday food product.
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