A Bad Dream in the Making? Reflecting on the Recent Riots in the UK – by Eszter Halasi


TRAVELERS TIMES UK
12 August 2024



“I left a country where my child was mistreated. I don't want to live in a country where we have to hide our Roma heritage or the fact that we are not English.”

Eszter Halasi, a Roma photo-journalist originally from Hungary but now settled in England, reflects on the recent anti-immigration and anti-Muslim hate riots that swept England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, following the tragic killing of three little girls at a dance class in Southport. Far right agitators on social media spread disinformation about the killer, claiming wrongly that he was an immigrant and Muslim, leading to attacks by gangs of thugs on Mosques, shops, people's houses, on ethnic minority people, a hotel housing Asylum seekers and a library - and on the police trying to protect them. Eszter Halasi went to one of the counter-protests in Bristol and reported on it for the Travellers' Times.



Just one week ago, an inexplicable tragedy struck, shaking the entire English society to it’s core when three little girls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class were killed by a man armed with a knife. The initial shock and sorrow about this was palpable across the country. Yet, amid this collective grief, a disturbing undercurrent began to surface. A handful of far-right influencers spread disinformation about the killings, leading to some people to take it upon themselves to become vigilantes. Together, they unleashed a wave of riots, hate and vandalism that swept across the nation, further compounding the sense of fear and unease.



At that time, I was in Slovakia, far removed from the turmoil back home. I was there to represent my photographs at an exhibition, staying in a small village near the Tatras, where the world felt distant. The tranquility of rural life was a stark contrast to the chaos unfolding in England. Upon my return, I was met with an overwhelming flood of news reports detailing the riots that had erupted.



August 2nd marked the 80th anniversary of the Roma Holocaust, a solemn day meant for remembrance and reflection. Yet, this year, it was marred by unsettling images of men giving Nazi salutes, images that filled both the news and social media. It left me questioning: How could this be happening in 2024? And in England, of all places - a country I chose for my children so they wouldn't face discrimination because of their skin colour. I fled a country where my child endured daily abuse from schoolmates. Here, I believed we were safe. For 11 years we lived with that sense of security. But Brexit in 2019 shook my confidence, making me wonder if the English had ever truly accepted us. We are migrants, and we are Roma. Now, I no longer feel secure.



Despite my fear, I felt a strong urge to act, to show solidarity with those under attack. I attended an anti-fascist and pro-migrant and refugee protest in Brighton and came home feeling a sense of relief and renewed hope. The protesters were kind and supportive; their presence and voices were for us, the migrants, too. I was moved to tears and smiled when I saw their signs and heard their chants. They were standing up for us - for me. What could be more beautiful than knowing that English people stand with us, for us?



Later that night, my son called me from the train station, asking where I was. I hesitated to speak Hungarian in public, so I hung up the phone. Earlier, I had already asked my son to stay home, even though he no longer has an accent. I left a country where my child was mistreated. I don't want to live in a country where we have to hide our Roma heritage or the fact that we are not English.



When I moved to England, I found a welcoming country filled with kind-hearted people. I hope that the violence of the last few days quickly fades away, becoming nothing more than a bad dream, and the parents of the three little girls can now grieve in peace.



Words and photographs by Eszter Halasi for the Travellers’ Times

Wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Travellers

Irish Travellers - Wikipedia

Genetic analysis has shown Irish Travellers to be of Irish extraction, and that they likely diverged from the settled Irish population in the 1600s, probably ...

SCOTLAND

  

Council worker pay strike suspended

Image: Kelly Neilson / Shutterstock.com.

 William Eichler 13 August 2024

A strike over pay that was set to hit Scotland this week has been suspended after council leaders made a new offer.

On Friday (9 August), the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) agreed to offer a minimum increase of 3.6% and for staff on the first pay point on pay scales 5.63%, amounting to £1,292. The overall value of the offer is 4.27%.

The Unite, GMB and Unison unions have agreed to suspend a planned walk out from 14 to 22 August while they consult their members over whether to accept the pay deal.

Graham McNab, Unite’s lead negotiator for local government, described the new offer as ‘credible’.

However, UNISON Scotland local government lead David O’Connor said the offer was ‘still not enough.’

‘Council staff have seen the value of their pay reduced by 25% over the past 14 years and any pay deal needs to do more to reverse this.’

GMB Scotland senior organiser Keir Greenaway said: 'This offer is a significant improvement on what came before but our members will decide if it is acceptable.'

Elsewhere in the UK, trade union calls for a return to the negotiating table over pay have been rebuffed.

UK
Labour repeal anti-union legislation

Labour last week announced that it will repeal a piece of anti-worker legislation—minimum service levels rules. But it is not enough

Protesting in Chelmsford against anti-union laws (Picture: Guy Smallman)

By Arthur Townend
Tuesday 13 August 2024I

 SOCIALIST WORKER

Keir Starmer’s government last week announced that it will repeal a key piece of anti-worker legislation—minimum service levels rules.

Introduced by the Tories in July last year, the law was designed to force workers to break strikes and deliver services during action.

The Tories brought in the pro-boss legislation, to reassure capitalists following an unprecedented rise in the number of strikes the previous year. Yet, despite big strikes, no bosses ever used it.

Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner said, “Attempting to clamp down on the fundamental freedom of working people has got us nowhere. “That’s why we’re scrapping this pointless law and creating a new partnership between business, trade unions and working people through our New Deal.”

Some trade union leaders celebrated the plan to ditch the legislation. Unison union’s general secretary Christina McAnea said, “This was a terrible law. “It’s great the government is ditching it so early on.

No employer used the law because doing so would have ramped up tensions, prolonged strikes and risked the wrath of the public.” Mick Lynch, general secretary of RMT transport union, said repealing the Act will help “reset industrial relations”.

He said it would help settle disputes “rather than having trade unions attacked and demonised”. But the minimum service levels legislation was never the most critical question for workers’ rights.

The Trade Union Act 2016 is a far more effective tool for the bosses to wield. It wrote into law that workers must reach certain turnout thresholds on strike ballots if they wanted to legally walk out.

Despite many promises to defy the law, trade union leaders have been reluctant to call or support action that is seen to challenge it. Ballot thresholds are both a real obstacle to action and a shield for reluctant union leaders to cower behind when they don’t want their members to strike.

If Labour truly wants to protect “the fundamental freedom of working people”, it should repeal the Trade Union Act now, not satisfy itself by ditching a less important law. The manifesto said a Labour government would “fully consult with business” before making any changes to the act.

But bosses are never going to agree to rip up a piece of legislation that strengthens their ability to exploit and profit.

It also promised to ban fire and rehire and end zero hours contracts. These are good demands. But it will take mass pressure, from workers and the unions, to push Starmer to depart from his existing pro-profit, pro-business agenda.

Only pressure from below will force him to consider the axing of the minimum service levels as the beginning of throwing out all the anti-worker legislation brought in by the Tories.

REFORM UK DEPUTY LEADER

Proud patriot Richard Tice used offshore tax haven to shield property shares from Treasury

"If you really love your country you pay your taxes", Jo Maugham of the Good Law Project said.

 by Jack Peat
2024-08-13



Reform UK deputy leader and the newly-elected MP for Boston and Skegness used an offshore tax haven to shield shares he held in his property empire from the Treasury, the Mirror newspaper has revealed.

Richard Tice has admitted to setting up a family trust in the Channel Islands haven of Jersey more than three decades ago during a two-year stint working in Paris when it was “unclear” if he would “ever come back to the UK”.

But the trust remained in place when he moved back to Britain in 1991 and only moved from Jersey to the UK “five years ago .. give or take”, despite him living here throughout those 28 years.

Tice said the trust, called the RJS Tice Family Settlement, was set up to avoid being “double taxed” on his “international investments”.

In 2016, when it was still offshore in Jersey, Tice transferred one million of his shares in his UK property business Quidnet Reit Limited into the trust.

Quidnet owns £32 million-worth of commercial property in the UK and the trust now owns a 17 per cent stake which is worth around £3 million.

Tice says the beneficiaries of the trust were his three children with his ex-wife and insisted they are all UK taxpayers like him.

Responding to the news, Jo Maugham, of the Good Law Project, hit out at the self-styled Reform UK patriot, saying: “If you really love your country you pay your taxes. You want young people to be well educated and older people to be cared for. You want a decent police force and your armed forces veterans looked after. You don’t have a family trust in a tax haven.”

 GEORGIA THE NATION

Strike at Evolution Georgia casino: Three employees on hunger strike

• JAMnews

• Tbilisi

AUGUST 13, 2024

• 
  

On the 33rd day of the strike, three employees of the Georgian online casino “Evolution Georgia” resorted to the extreme form of protest by going on a hunger strike. They have stated that they will not end the hunger strike until their demands are met.

The strike at “Evolution Georgia” began on July 12 and involves 5,000 people—more than half of the casino’s staff. However, the casino’s management claims that only 800 employees are on strike. The main demands of the strikers are higher wages and improved working conditions.

The “Labor” trade union, which represents workers in agriculture, trade, and industry, asserts that the strike and hunger strike are indefinite.

"I worked 12 hours, shaking with fever." The story of a striking online casino employee in Georgia. VIDEO

Nanuka Nadiraidze, a single mother, works 22 nights a month as a croupier

“We call on the government, the president, the ombudsman, political parties, and non-governmental organizations to take a stand on the violent and provocative actions of the company and to prevent the hunger strike of employees aged 18 to 25.

Full responsibility for the future developments rests with the administration of ‘Evolution Georgia,’ which is trying to intimidate and assault employees, as well as with the government, which must protect the interests of the country’s citizens from a company that insults them, threatens them, and imposes unbearable working conditions,” the union’s statement says.

Up to 5,000 employees of the online casino "Evolution Georgia" have gone on strike

The main demand of the striking employees is for better working conditions, particularly an increase in wages

Employees of “Evolution Georgia” sent 44 appeals to the company’s management. The negotiation process began on June 4, before the strike was announced, and concluded on June 24 without any results. Nikoloz Katarapiashvili, a member of the union’s organizing committee, attributes this to the management’s dismissive attitude towards them.

On August 5, “Evolution Georgia” issued a statement noting that if the situation does not improve, it will cease operations in Georgia. According to Radio Free Europe, the company has already moved most of its gaming tables to Armenia, and only managers and cleaning staff remain in the main building of the casino in Tbilisi. The company stated that the suspension of activities was due to the “illegal behavior” of the strike organizers and participants.

“Evolution Georgia” is a subsidiary of the Swedish Evolution Gaming Group, which entered Georgia in 2017. The company offers “live dealer” services, where players interact with real dealers via live broadcast, placing bets with real money. “Evolution Georgia” employs around 8,000 staff members, some of whom have formed their own union.

Canada revokes charitable status of two pro-Israel orgs linked to settlements

The announcement, published in the Canada Gazette, revokes the subsidies from the Jewish National Fund Canada and the Ne'eman Foundation.

The New Arab Staff
13 August, 2024

The two organisations are accused of supporting illegal settlement activity in the West Bank [Getty]

Canada has revoked the tax-exempt status of two major pro-Israel organisations, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) announced on Sunday.

The announcement, published in the Canada Gazette, revokes the subsidies from the Jewish National Fund Canada and the Ne'eman Foundation.

While no official reason was given for the revocations, pro-Palestine groups have speculated that the move follows allegations that the two organisations were working with illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

In January, Toronto-based advocacy group Just Peace Advocates submitted a request to the CRA calling for an audit of the Ne'eman Foundation, which it indicated had funded organisations involved with the Israeli military and illegal West Bank settlements. The request was signed by pro-Palestine activists Rabbi David Mivasair and Khaled Mouammar.

According to Just Peace Advocates, the Ne'eman Foundation Canada "assisted the undercover assassination unit, Duvdevan, and lone soldiers including Michael Levin Base (Base for Lone Soldiers) and Brothers for Life, as well as donating to Reservists on Duty".

The group also provided funds to Se’u Tziona Nes v’degel which fundraises for the extremist Nachla settler movement headed by Daniella Weiss — a prominent settler leader sanctioned by Canada in June. Weiss, 78, advocates for Jewish settlements in the entirety of Palestine, including Gaza.

The Jewish National Fund, a Zionist organisation founded in 1902, was established with the purpose of acquiring land in Palestine for the exclusive settlement of Jews.

Among its other activities, in 1972 the JNF funded the establishment of 'Canada Park' over a the site of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages of Yalu, Imwas and Beit Nuba. The national park, which includes a man-made forest, stretches over 7,000 dunums. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, fast-growing non-native species of trees were preferred for the forestation of the park as a means of covering up the ruins of the destroyed Palestinian villages and cementing expulsion of their residents.

The moves against the two Jewish groups follow sanctions in June against settler activist Weiss and top settler group Amana.

As many as 700,000 Israeli settlers - 10 percent of Israel’s nearly 7 million population - currently live in illegal settlements and outposts built on private lands in the occupied West Bank.

Since 7 October, there has been a spike in settler attacks on Palestinians, which have forced hundreds of Palestinians to flee their homes in the West Bank.

At least 618 Palestinians have been killed there by the Israeli army or settlers since October, according to an AFP count based on official Palestinian data.

“We’re paying for our own annihilation but nobody thinks about it”

August 13, 2024 

 By Marilyn Bechtel


Nuclear bomb testing by the U.S. in the 1950s is estimated to have killed at least a half million Americans. | YouTube screenshot


LIVERMORE, Calif. – “They don’t want peace. Why? Because peace doesn’t make money.” Those words were spoken here at the recent demonstration against the production of thermonuclear weapons at Livermore Labs.

As peace activists gathered around the world to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, honoring the hundreds of thousands killed or severely injured and demanding the weapons be abolished, over 100 demonstrators assembled at the West Gate of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of two locations designing and developing every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal.

Standing before a banner proclaiming “Back from the Brink: The Imperative of Nuclear Abolition,” Scott Yundt, executive director of Tri-Valley Communities against a Radioactive Environment (Tri-Valley CAREs), which monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities with a special focus on Livermore Lab, told demonstrators that the 9,500 workers there are busier now than at any time since the end of the Cold War. “And while we are contemplating a world where what happened 79 years ago never happens again,” he said, “inside the fence they are contemplating total nuclear annihilation.”

Among the many nuclear warhead programs the lab is working on are the W80-4 warhead for the long-range standoff cruise missile and the W87-1 warhead for the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile.

“These thermonuclear weapons are exponentially more powerful than the bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” Yundt said, and they “are being loaded with new, never-before-developed systems, technologies and capabilities that make these civilization-ending weapons more flexible and usable for a wide array of potential missions for the Department of Defense.”  

Scott Yundt, executive director of Tri-Valley Communities against a Radioactive Environment (Tri-Valley CAREs), which monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities. | Marilyn Bechtel

The W87-1 warhead is the first entirely new warhead to be designed since the Cold War ended, with a new plutonium bomb core, or pit, and surrounding components substantially different from any other warhead that’s been tested, Yundt said. Four hundred new ICBM missiles are planned, with two of the new warheads on each missile. Pit production will expand at two other U.S. nuclear weapons sites, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Tri-Valley CAREs and other monitor groups are suing the National Nuclear Security Administration for failing to adequately analyze the environmental impacts of plutonium pit production. They say NNSA failed to include extensive work at Livermore Lab and didn’t sufficiently examine the increase in nuclear waste or the risks from shipping plutonium across the country on highways.

Yundt said $30 billion of the $895 billion the Biden Administration requested for national defense in fiscal 2025 is slated for nuclear weapons and related programs. Some $2.5 billion of that will come to Livermore Lab, with most of it for nuclear weapons. Overall, modernizing nukes is slated to cost the U.S. more than $2 trillion over the next three decades: “It’s all part of an ever-spiraling nuclear weapons-industrial complex and budget that overshadows those of all other countries by orders of magnitude and shows no signs of slowing down.”

Maylene Hughes, staff member with Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles and the organization’s liaison to the national Back from the Brink campaign, said the stories of those who perished and who survived the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings “compel us to act so that such horrors are never repeated.”

Besides making the world a safer place for all, Hughes said, “the billions of dollars currently invested in the nuclear complex could and should be redirected to address community needs that are far more pressing to the lives of everyday people. Imagine if we invested those resources in healthcare, housing, education and the fight against poverty?”

Back from the Brink was founded in 2017, shortly after the United Nations Treaty on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted. Its aim is to build public demand and political will for nuclear abolition. Its mission is “clear and urgent, to lead negotiations among nuclear-armed states for multilateral, verifiable and time-bound agreements to eliminate nuclear weapons globally.”

Hughes said Back from the Brink also calls on the U.S. government to undertake “common sense policy solutions” to help reduce the risk of nuclear war right now:Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first,
End the sole unchecked authority of any U.S. president to launch a nuclear attack,
Take U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, and Cancel plans to replace the entire U.S. arsenal with enhanced nuclear weapons.

She said local, community-based organizing is the heart of the campaign’s work, with “everyday people … who want to make a difference” united to speak out and act against the threat of nuclear weapons.

Among Back from the Brink’s achievements: over 80 municipalities, counties and state bodies, including major cities like Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, have adopted resolutions supporting the campaign’s policy platform. “Every time a city council, county board or state legislature passes one of these resolutions,” Hughes said, “they are sending a clear message to Washington: We the people want a world without nuclear weapons.”

And H Res 77, Embracing the goals and provisions of the TPNW, now has 44 co-sponsors, “more than any other current legislation related to nuclear weapons.”

Hughes urged rally participants to form or join one of the 17 Back to the Brink organizing hubs around the country. The campaign also provides information about forming hubs in new areas.

The Rev. Monica Cross, pastor at First Christian Church of Oakland, and a Quad Chair of the California Poor People’s Campaign, pointed to the total Pentagon budget for 2024. She said the $2.09 trillion allocated to its six components means that 69 cents of every tax dollar goes toward the very things that will kill us.

“We’re paying for our own annihilation, but nobody thinks about it,” she said. “We think about, we’re going to be a big empire, strong – a lot of folks think like that.”

Cross cited the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ calculations that the nine nuclear-armed nations spent over $91 billion on nuclear weapons in 2023 – a total of $2,898 per second – ripping public funds from healthcare, education, disaster relief and other vital services, while funds for disarmament efforts were miniscule in comparison.

“They don’t want peace – why?” she asked. “Because peace doesn’t make money! But that’s kind of how this country was built in the first place. Slavery wasn’t just about dehumanizing folks bodily, it was an economic issue. There’s really nothing different, is there? The same old stuff.”

Cross urged all to vote and to help get out the vote in the November election. She encouraged people to connect with the Poor People’s Campaign and its local branches.

Norman Solomon speaks about an unhinged system that threatens the survival of humanity. | Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Norman Solomon, journalist, founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, reminded rally participants of renowned anti-nuclear weapons activist Daniel Ellsberg’s emphasis on the importance of not just eliminating the new Sentinel ICBM but doing away with ICBMs altogether. ICBMs “are launch-on-warning, they’re hair-trigger, they’re use-em-or-lose-em, unlike any nuclear weapon in the arsenal,” he said. “They are absolutely the worst.”

Solomon urged rally participants to read or re-read Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, because it shows how presidents, secretaries of defense and secretaries of state “are part of an unhinged system that threatens the survival of humanity. “And so our work is to bring sanity to the world, and break the silence. That’s what people here are doing. Thank you very much!”

Japanese film director Hideaki Ito, whose award-winning documentary film, Silent Fallout, explores the untold stories of victims of nuclear weapons tests in the U.S., told rally participants that they, too, are victims of nuclear weapons.

Silent Fallout chronicles the consequences of nuclear tests conducted in the U.S. starting in 1951, with 101 above-ground tests spreading radioactive poisoning widely throughout the country.

“The U.S. government created nuclear weapons in exchange for the health and lives of your people,” Ito told rally participants. “The nuclear weapons were to safeguard your country, but with a nuclear weapon that jeopardized your lives, what exactly are you protecting? This is my question, not only to Americans but to all other nuclear armed countries.”

Silent Fallout was shown in the Bay Area on Aug. 9-11.

Patricia Ellsberg, wife of Daniel Ellsberg, shared how much her late husband valued participating in actions at Livermore Lab over the years, joining in nonviolent civil disobedience as rally participants blocked the Lab’s gate: “I think when he was getting arrested, as some of us will do later, he felt he was – as Thoreau said – ‘casting his whole vote.’

“There are really two existential threats we’re facing as humanity,” she said. Of course, the threat of nuclear war. Then there’s the other one that’s as major, which is climate change. And the two are so interconnected, because climate change is already taking people’s lives … The money that goes to the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons has got to go to combating climate change and meeting human needs.”

Ellsberg cited her husband’s account, in The Doomsday Machine, of learning during the Kennedy administration that a nuclear war would be expected to exterminate over half a billion people. “And then,” she said, “the last line to the Prologue is, ‘From that day on, I have had one overriding life purpose: To prevent the execution of any such plan.’

“I feel my husband is here … He’d be here with his blue shirt and his peace sign, getting arrested for the future of humanity and the wellbeing of our wonderful Mother Nature, Earth.”

After demonstrators joined in the symbolic Japanese Bon dance to honor those who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 23 participants took part in nonviolent civil disobedience, blocking the gate as police ordered them to disperse. All were cited and released.

Also participating: Wilson Riles, Jr. was MC, Patricia St. Onge offered the land acknowledgment, Chizu Hamada led the Bon dance. Tri-Valley CAREs Senior Advisor Marylia Kelley and Western State Legal Foundation Executive Director spoke briefly and singer/songwrite Andrea Prichett performed.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. 

CONTRIBUTOR

Marilyn Bechtel  writes from the San Francisco Bay Area. She joined the PW staff in 1986 and currently participates as a volunteer. Marilyn Bechtel escribe desde el Área de la Bahía de San Francisco. Se unió al personal de PW en 1986 y actualmente participa como voluntaria.

 

Study finds microplastics in all Indian salt and sugar brands

The size of these microplastics ranged from 0.1 mm to 5 mm.

• 13 August, 2024

The highest levels of microplastics were found in iodised salt (Photo for representation: iStock)

By: Pramod Thomas

ALL Indian salt and sugar brands, whether big or small, packaged or unpackaged, contain microplastics, according to a study published on Tuesday (13).

The study, titled Microplastics in Salt and Sugar, conducted by the environmental research organisation Toxics Link, tested 10 types of salt — including table salt, rock salt, sea salt and local raw salt — and five types of sugar purchased from both online and local markets.

The study revealed the presence of microplastics in all salt and sugar samples, in various forms, including fibre, pellets, films and fragments. The size of these microplastics ranged from 0.1 mm to 5 mm.

The highest levels of microplastics were found in iodised salt, in the form of multi-coloured thin fibre and films.

Toxics Link founder-director Ravi Agarwal said, “The objective of our study was to contribute to the existing scientific database on microplastics so that the global plastic treaty can address this issue in a concrete and focused manner.”

“We also aim to trigger policy action and attract researchers’ attention to potential technological interventions that could reduce exposure risks to microplastics.”

Toxics Link associate director Satish Sinha added, “Our study’s finding of substantial amounts of microplastics in all salt and sugar samples is concerning and calls for urgent, comprehensive research into the long-term health impacts of microplastics on human health.”

The concentration of microplastics in the salt samples ranged from 6.71 to 89.15 pieces per kilogramme of dry weight, the report said.

Iodised salt had the highest concentration of microplastics (89.15 pieces per kilogramme) while organic rock salt had the lowest (6.70 pieces per kilogramme), according to the study.

In sugar samples, the concentration of microplastics ranged from 11.85 to 68.25 pieces per kilogramme, with the highest concentration found in non-organic sugar.

Microplastics are a growing global concern because they can harm both health and the environment. These tiny plastic particles can enter the human body through food, water and air.

Recent research has found microplastics in human organs such as the lungs, heart, and even in breast milk and unborn babies.

Previous studies found that the average Indian consumes 10.98 grams of salt and around 10 spoons of sugar every day — much higher than WHO’s recommended limits.

(PTI)