Is anything pure anymore? Or are we (as environmentally unconscious denizens of this spanning, beautiful planet) doomed now to incur the karma for our lazy recycling habits, and disregard of our harmful footprints?
Guess what, folks? If you're a fan of food that isn't bland -- as in, if you'd prefer a well-seasoned meal over eating, let's say, cardboard -- then you are likely ingesting plastic particles with every bite, because all that packaging that we used and didn't recycle probably has now almost certainly found its way back into our sea salt.
Yup. Quartz reports that every year, we the people dump approximately 13 million metric tons of plastic into our oceans.
For one thing, there are actual sentient, living creatures in those oceans, so that's already a no-no if you're trying to live a compassionate life.
For another, a huge percentage of that dumped plastic chilling with all the marine life is tiny -- as in, less than 5 millimeters (or 0.2 inches) in size.
Itsy bitsy teenie weenie.
Poor innocent creatures in the sea (such as krill) confuse the microplastics for their natural food sources, and end up eating it for sustenance; then, of course, the circle of marine life goes on. The krill get eaten by salmon; the salmon get farmed by us and eaten worldwide by human beings.
Don't eat fish? That doesn't mean you're safe. Quartz reports that a new study demonstrates that 16 different sea-salt brands from seven different countries (Australia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, and South Africa) all contain plastic.
Basically, researchers dissolved salt in water, and found 72 particles remained behind, with 30 of those particles being confirmed as plastic, and 17 as pigments that once belonged to plastic.
Yikes.
"Plastic in the ocean is an atrocity; a testament to humanity’s filthy habits," said Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Utrecht University who studies ocean circulation and plastic pollution, to Hakai, as per Quartz.
It's not too late to reduce your harmful impact on our planet, and start getting more mindful about waste and recycling!