Thyroid disease-prone coastal areas, raised questions of excessive iodine

From the long sea journey to the stomach

The South are 10 text magazine reporter Xu Zheng Xuan Shan Chongshan intern Xuwen in Guangdong, Jiangmen, Guangzhou reports

July 23, Dashu. Newly Typhoon "Soudelor", "Mola Fei" in a month has hit the Guangdong coast, daylight, such as Sunburn, water Hao-miao. In China's southernmost tip, is surrounded by the sea state Xuwen fisheries, people have been in the sun tan cheeks hurt, everywhere-hyun white, but the sea solar salt industry, the sun is the best friend.

"It's a typhoon a few years a particularly large number," I make working the salt Xuwen told reporters: "a rain, we could not do anything." Plan issued in Guangdong province, the Xuwen fisheries to produce 47.87 thousand tons this year, sea salt, if the year are the sunny days, where the average daily output should exceed 130 tonnes. In Tianjin and other places, and some sea salt market is huge annual output of 1 million.

Salt from sea water to the raw materials, where the production takes about 20 days. Year after year, in the Pearl River Delta wings, salt crystal from the vastness of the Blue Wave was precipitated, along the coast and taking the first step toward the city.

In China, the offshore water was introduced into China nearly 250 fixed-point sea salt field, there are a number of collective or Private Salt field, the sun filtering through the different processes has been sent to barge or wagon. These raw materials and the inland salt lake salt, rock salt has been transported to processing sites along with most of iodization, and some outside the system directly into the Private Salt - Chinese annual consumption of about 9 million tons of iodized or not iodized salt, table salt a variety of sources and paths right and wrong on this staggered into our stomach, while weaving a vast network of salt industries and processing chain.

Now, let us start from the sea, watching their journey.

Born due to drying

In Xuwen, there are still ancient "fried salt" of the ruins, as early as the Tang dynasty, where the direct use of sea salt workers boiled salt. Until the press interview, as a sentinel of salt production enterprises in Mainland China, one of 97, where salt Xuwen colorful old Soviet-style buildings, as well as the sixties of the last century the slogan, while the Salt Bureau, the salt is a franchise history of the mainland of China one of the longest.

Modern Chinese people eat salt, from sea salt, mineral salt and lake salt, and their different production process, which leads between them looks a bit different - Salt, Guangdong Province, according to a description of technical staff, sea salt looked nothing like the rock salt so white, and salt water are more of a jin Shaizhi salt transported to processing plants, may be only eighty or ninety pounds weight.

July 23 morning, Xuwen salt salt inside a transport truck to the warehouse fled, leaving behind a wet water mark along the way can still see the ground fall out of transport of Yan Hua. This is the beginning of "Harvest" of the coarse salt crystal from the crystal pool, which is salt Shaizhi process in the last one - water from distant areas of high slope, after a ten-level salt ponds, drying for different levels of brine, the ultimate collection of the Here, the salinity has gradually risen from 2 degrees 25 degrees to 28 degrees, which is the most suitable salinity collected.

A number of ten mu of the size of drying salt ponds, from the local Xuwen Blackstone and wooden floor puzzle is made in order to repair pool tiles. Light yellow crystalline salt, quietly settling in the final crystallization of a bottom, waiting for the salt workers or machines to collect. Salt from seawater to be received by the way, but also to remove impurities such as heavy metals, takes about 20 days and the weather will decide whether to even longer time, or how long, so salt has its own weather station at any time pay attention to weather will From the Qing Zhuanyin.

Summer the heat of the sun takes off, the two journalists came to Xuwen salt, the salt-workers have concluded its work and return to their place of residence "to eat breakfast." However, the days of quiet, and will not last long: when rain is approaching, salt would be echoed years served as a warning bell, more than 300 salt-union immediately from their residence to the salt build-up, rapidly covered with the film in various drying salt ponds, as far as possible to protect different slope grade salt ponds, the scene is very spectacular.

However, not every "rescue" was so timely - the sudden arrival of wind and rain will pollute the drying salt ponds, and to sea water, brine concentration of confused, so that solar salt production processes undo all our efforts. Even if the salt ponds to protect live, continuous rainy weather, the solar salt production processes will also be extended indefinitely. "It's three years, I do not know why unusually many typhoons, we completed the production plan of the difficulty a lot more." I told reporters working the right.

Salt workers daily working hours are generally from 4:00 to 8 am, and at that stage of sunshine and temperature best suited to close salt. Living for generations to solar salt, salt, dark-workers rake and other tools used to collect the salt piles, and then sent to transport salt to the warehouse of the truck. In contrast, in north China's Tianjin and other places, due to less rain, salt pond area is also very large, large-scale mechanized operations can be implemented, a number of annual output to reach millions of tons of salt is huge.

In the 1980s, salt workers was a beautiful marriage of girls eager to object, because they are high income and stable. Today, those who stay away from developed areas in Guangdong coastal salt, most of the difficulties facing the state-owned industrial and mining enterprises: enterprise-run burden on society, the local tax revenue and assessed, as well as the employment pressure and so on.

Trek

Coastal areas in Guangdong, there are hundreds of private or collective sea salt factory, they are generally higher than the overall size of state-owned salt is small, looks like a phalanx of a household responsibility system. Xuwen salt in the surrounding salt smuggling field, a pair of middle-aged couple told reporters that they have 23 acres of private salt ponds, drying good for people to come buy, the annual income of about 1-20000.

Private Salt and common salt, from the naked eye can not see difference, in the sun is shining white, and a plastic sheeting covered with piles placed in the Private Salt Tanabe. For the Private Salt field is, they do not consider the need for iodized matter, nor the need to consider transport, prices, and therefore, occupied the Xuwen local market, so, how to promote the national salt produced iodized salt has become a Salt department of local difficulty.

Data show that in 2008 in Guangdong Province of iodized salt coverage of qualified iodized salt consumption rates were 93.13% and 90.05%, respectively, compared with 2007 increased 4.60 and 4.81 percentage points. "However, the source of non-iodized salt in small coastal salt problem is still not completely resolved, and the Pearl River Delta still has non-iodized salt and iodized salt fake write-off."

For the state-owned Guangdong salt, they produce the raw material salt will be transported to Jiangmen, Shantou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other parts of the machining center, Tim iodine and other processes. Xuwen fisheries in the port, sea salt bags of raw material being sent to the barge, then transported to the bulk transport ship. In the Salt Pier, I make working told reporters that the process of water transport, freight up to seventy to eighty yuan a ton.

Environment and the weather has been changing, Guangdong coastal salt production conditions for decades, are also being worse. As the seawater salinity in the lower salt Shaizhi now takes longer, and those who produce the raw materials Xuwen salt, in addition to travel a long way processing point, but also the raw material with other salts meet: because of high humidity it was too big Mainland China must be shipped in dry mineral salt mixture is required for iodization and other processing.

This means that, in the Guangdong region, urban people often eat the iodized salt, sea and wells from the mixture of mineral salt. Of raw materials in China, salt production, salt, mineral salt, and lake salt each 65%, 28%, 7%, the coastal provinces of the sale of salt, a lot is not a local "original ecology" of salt products.

A number of salt workers, told reporters not far from the salt Xuwen, Guangdong Electric white salt will have to be sold, its employees have had to worry about the future livelihood. The production of two major sub-sea salt-producing areas north and south, while the southern growing areas are mostly smaller, more rain in China's Salt Industry Corporation's plan, the number of state-owned Guangdong salt, will face consolidation, or even shutting down the way out .

Traditional Chinese salt industry is also facing pressure to upgrade industrial technology. In Xuwen salt, the remaining brine Shaizhi completed, that is, salt liquor, contains large amounts of soluble salts of liquid, most have not been integrated chemical use, on the one hand resulted in waste of resources, it also polluted the salt the environment, compared to, for protection of resources, China Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and other East Asian developed regions, the salt industry had almost disappeared.

Mandatory iodization

When the salt Xuwen transported to the Jiangmen, Guangdong, one of the fixed-point processing center, which, from the salt mines elsewhere in China who, together with access to iodized salt Guangdong, the most important programs: iodized. In Guangdong, the output of all the salt is probably more than 100,000 tons, the annual salt consumption of about 80 million tons, so not only sea salt in order to reconcile the humidity, Guangdong also needed from Hunan, Jiangxi, Hubei and other places "imported" from the Mainland mineral raw materials .

After all, there Xuwen salt iodization equipment, but because aging old, has been demolished two weeks ago. The morning of July 24, Jiangmen processing of iodized area rumbling of iodization machines in continuous operation. Raw materials in a sealed tunnel of salt has been sprayed iodine - looks a Road white iodine is injected into the raw salt, and then sent to the mixing tank where, in some maneuvers over the full mixing into the points after the loading area, the whole process of no more than two minutes.

Artificial iodization is the man against iodine deficiency the most widely used means of application. Each individual needs, the number of iodine may be identical in principle, Jiangmen technical staff, told reporters that the iodization process, the most taboo is iodized uneven. As a result, a standard range of countries to control the amount of iodized generally 1kg salt should contain 20 to 50mg iodine, which is common in most parts of the country standards.

Nature of iodine deficiency, iodine spray can not rely on a two-minute to resolve. Iodine deficiency can be traced back as early as the Ice Age, while most of the world of environmental iodine deficiency, flooding, desertification and rain erosion, resulting in some areas of iodine in the soil, together with the soil being washed away, and more emphasis on the iodine deficiency situation. Although iodine has a circulation in nature, but according to calculations by rain into the soil iodine supplement to the original level, takes about one to two years really that long.

In Jiangmen, the raw materials into finished products of salt iodization of salt to ship before the planned workshop there will be random checks iodized situation, and salt and supervision departments will also be the local random checks from time to time. The last ten years, mandatory iodine is China's basic policy of public health. However, different degrees of iodine deficiency in different provinces, even as Fujian and Hebei provinces have been listed as iodine areas, the need to promote non-iodized salt. Guangdong is the first implementation of salt iodization in the country one of the provinces, 70 of the last century, began iodization, based on these studies, Guangdong has 54 districts with severe iodine deficiency, mostly mountainous, while the Pearl River Delta and other coastal areas , then the majority of mild iodine deficiency.

In order to monitor the effectiveness of iodine supplementation, Guangdong local disease prevention and control institutions every month the collection, testing, compilation, analysis of iodized salt monitoring data, these results will be submitted to the Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and then are submitted to the Ministry of Health to eliminate Iodine Deficiency Disorders technical guidance center of international cooperation projects, as well as salt authorities. However, in recent years, many health agencies around the iodine status should be based on more precise adjustment of iodine standards, which for the salt company, health sector, is a major challenge.

Diversified franchise

Refined salt in the fixed-point machining center package after the distribution will be the surrounding areas, from the salt company's commitment to the wholesale and finally flows into the salt company's own or other sales channels, in tuck shops in supermarkets, or embark on people's tables and into our of the stomach.

In Guangdong and even the country, salt from production to sales, largely by the Salt Company specializes in: "As regard to the safety of salt, but also iodization, but also taking into account the different levels in different regions, it is necessary to implement the state-owned monopolies, by the Salt the fight against private, to ensure that the iodine implementation of policies. "Salt, Guangdong Province, Qi-Ming Feng, deputy director of the publicity department of the reporter explained.

In the Salt Monopoly management functions such as 8, the salt production license issuance and preparation of the annual plan are two key factors, while raw materials prices of salt and refined salt by the countries to develop. In the Guangzhou market, 500 grams of iodized salt price is 1.3 yuan, while in Xuwen salt, crude salt per ton of raw materials the factory price of 360 yuan.

After the Spring Festival this year, Guangdong has appeared in many places the salt off the shelf reports, later proved to be the company to replace the sale of salt, salt packaging initiatives. In January after the developed cities in Guangdong, particularly in supermarkets, different packaging non-iodized salt, plus sodium, zinc, iron, calcium-fortified salt in the shelves, prices vary, to change the past of iodized salt unify the legitimate sales channels situation.

Product diversification, and diversification is a salt company in recent years, new ways to increase income.

According to introduction, in the Pearl River Delta, relying on a market economy reforms are being implemented in salt readiness to stay. The processing in Jiangmen, Guangdong Province, salt companies are preparing to centralized distribution points set at Jiangmen, pool resources and reduce costs. Meanwhile, in order to develop revenue sources, road salt to go diversified, for example, in Guangzhou, two large water treatment center, are a product of the strategy.