Microplastic pollution from sea salt: its effect on public health and prevention alternatives - a review

Abstract

Salt is a commodity that is needed by everyone. There is a problem because many salts are contaminated with microplastics (MPs). Indonesia to meet the needs of industry with first-class quality salt must be imported. This paper is a review of microplastics from several salt importing countries to Indonesia and also to describe the effect of microplastics for the health public and prevention alternatives. This review used secondary data from total and types (MPs) contamination, amount of salt imports. The results show that almost all salt exports to Indonesia are contaminated by microplastic. Types of microplastic contaminated in Indonesia's sea salt production were tainted with MPs of PE, PP, and PET types. Contamination microplastic from imported salt is PE, PP, PET, Acrylic, nylon, PVC, PS. The number of polluted MPs is the lowest was 0-9 particles, the higher was 120-718 particles/kg salt. The effect of microplastic on health in the form of cancer, brain function, genetic changes, bronchitis, liver dysfunction, eye irritation. Alternative prevention by recycling plastic waste, changing public behavior in the use of plastics and filtration technology.

Investigating the Correlation of Microplastic Pollution Between Seawater and Marine Salt Using Micro-Raman Spectroscopy

“…Moreover, PET, PS, and its expanded derivatives were reported to cause eye and respiratory irritation, endocrine disruption (Godswill and Godspel, 2019), and cancer (GESAMP, 2015). Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is also a carcinogenic substance and can cause gene mutation, bronchitis chronic, liver dysfunction, and skin diseases (Nilawati et al, 2020). Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is the least commonly found type, but particles from implant materials could induce particleinduced osteolysis (GESAMP, 2015).…”

“…Instead, such waste breaks down into micro-particles that float or remain suspending in various forms and different size categories in seawater at various depths, depending on the density of the polymer. More plastic solids such as PVC from the seawater tend to settle, whereas lowdensity MPs such as PE, PP, and Styrofoam are likely buoyant on the surface where they are transported over long distances to remote places (Chubarenko et al, 2016;Nilawati et al, 2020). MPs are also subjected to biofouling and colonization with microorganisms when interacting with biota in the environment.…”

“…Approximately 42% of non-fiber plastic types have been used for packaging, of which PE, PP, and PET are predominant (Geyer et al, 2017). PET is the largest group of polyester in textile production, compared with PA, PP, and PVC (Iñiguez et al, 2017;Nilawati et al, 2020). PE and nylon can be used to manufacture fishing lines, and therefore they are not indispensable compositions in the coastal environment.…”

“…This difference may be due to the density of these polymers. PE is less dense than water and, thus, PE can be transported on sea currents and dissipated (Nilawati et al, 2020). However, in contrast, heavy PET particles tend to move to the bottom and remain with the salt during the salt crystallization process because of the higher density (1.3 g/cm 3 ) than that of PE (0.94 g/cm 3 ) and PP (0.90 g/cm 3 ) (Yang et al, 2015;Iñiguez et al, 2017).…”

The Effect of Geomembrane Plastic Usage on Microplastic and Heavy Metal Contamination in Salt Field

“…Salts from around the world are generally already polluted with microplastics [2]. The microplastic content in salt poses a threat to human health [13,14]. Farmers get benefits from geomembrane plastic that increases productivity.…”