Are you concerned about toxic chemicals in plastic food packaging?

[Klystron]

...We wear cotton, wool or other natural textiles whenever possible, avoiding synthetics. Thus, we no longer use fabric softener, nor need it. We wash all new raiment before wearing...

Forgive my editing in order to highlight the specific issue of wearing synthetic fabrics.

I also wear 100% cotton clothes, at least against my skin, as most synthetics cause an unpleasant reaction after a few minutes exposure. I do wear some synthetics such as long sleeve shirts for swimming but over a cotton liner. Friends call my synthetic-over-cotton swim clothes a "poor man's wetsuit".

I discontinued using even hypoallergenic fabric softeners due to skin rashes and little perceived benefit. I always wash new fabrics before wearing according to attached fabric care instructions, also to remove strange odors and manufacturing debris.

 

[pinball1970]

Many of these substances require decades to demonstrate their effects. So what do we do?

That is what REACh in the EU was set out to achieve in 2007. Restrict the use of harmful chemicals for consumer products.
There were existing restrictions on chemical use and banned lists for known carcinogens/toxins etc from the 60s to the 90s and REACh today essentially harmonizes those lists.
Your question in my experience has cropped up a lot since there are detailed dossiers detailed from ECHA on some specifics but not all, some specifically regarding human studies but others on nonhuman.
Phthalates fall into that category, the studies are mixed and some of the chemicals may just end up on the list by way of the functional group.
This is anecdotal but one example was Azo dyes, several NGOs wanted us to restrict all AZOs because of things like this. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15177655/#:~:text=Several epidemiological studies have demonstrated,been a matter of discussion.
(Azo dyes have this N=N)
The issue with certain Azos is that they cleave to form amines which can have carcinogenic properties and 23 of those were identified and are on the SVHC list above.

The NGOs in question were not interested in the effects on industry or the relevant chemistry, the more banned chemicals the better.
In my opinion.
The balance should be restriction and substitution of dangerous chemicals, agree.
Authorization/Phase out where the chemistry is essential to that industry. Aviation, medicinal, fire fighting for example.
One harmonized system, not easy but makes sense with a global economy.
The toxicologists, chemists and industry specialists should develop the lists and drive the changes. This does not always happen. (See above)

 

[pinball1970]

I discontinued using even hypoallergenic fabric softeners due to skin rashes and little perceived benefit. I always wash new fabrics before wearing according to attached fabric care instructions, also to remove strange odors and manufacturing debris.

Wash first a good tactic, if it smells then there will be something on there even if low concentrations. (VOCs Volatile Organic Compounds)
It may not be harmful but best to wash it off.

Restrictions on dyes including known hyper allergenic disperse dyes used on polyester and other dye classes are listed above on SVHC.

Stick to what works for you I suppose (that is not medical advice!)

 

[Astronuc]

Between the microplastics, toxins, and not to mention trash, we hope to make a small difference in our bodies and environment. Anyone else?

One could add plastic cooking utensils, e.g., black plastic spatulas.

In 2018, Turner published one of the earliest papers positing that black plastic products were likely regularly being made from recycled electronic waste. The clue was the plastic’s concerning levels of flame retardants. In some cases, the mix of chemicals matched the profile of those commonly found in computer and television housing, many of which are treated with flame retardants to prevent them from catching fire.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-plastic-spatula-flame-retardants/680452/

One might need a subscription to read the entire article.

The link to Turner's 2018 paper - Black plastics: Linear and circular economies, hazardous additives and marine pollution
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160412018302125?via=ihub

Black products constitute about 15% of the domestic plastic waste stream, of which the majority is single-use packaging and trays for food. This material is not, however, readily recycled owing to the low sensitivity of black pigments to near infrared radiation used in conventional plastic sorting facilities. Accordingly, there is mounting evidence that the demand for black plastics in consumer products is partly met by sourcing material from the plastic housings of end-of-life waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE). Inefficiently sorted WEEE plastic has the potential to introduce restricted and hazardous substances into the recyclate, including brominated flame retardants (BFRs), Sb, a flame retardant synergist, and the heavy metals, Cd, Cr, Hg and Pb. The current paper examines the life cycles of single-use black food packaging and black plastic WEEE in the context of current international regulations and directives and best practices for sorting, disposal and recycling.

 

[nsaspook]

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it doesn’t matter​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352402811X

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]​

The authors regret that our original manuscript was printed with an error when calculating the BDE-209 reference dose for a 60 kg adult. We compared the estimated daily intake of 34,700 ng/day of BDE-209 from the use of contaminated utensils to the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose of 7000 ng/kg bw/day. However, we miscalculated the reference dose for a 60 kg adult, initially estimating it at 42,000 ng/day instead of the correct value of 420,000 ng/day. As a result, we revised our statement from 'the calculated daily intake would approach the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose' to 'the calculated daily intake remains an order of magnitude lower than the U.S. BDE-209 reference dose.' We regret this error and have updated it in our manuscript. This calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper. The authors would like to apologize for any inconvenience caused.

The evil ZERO strikes again.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I've had silicone cooking tools for a few years now. I also just got rid of my last plastic plates. Bought a nice set of porcelain plates from Target.

 

[nsaspook]

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it doesn’t matter​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352402811X

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]​

The evil ZERO strikes again.

The journal Chemosphere?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosphere_(journal)

In July 2023, the journal was put "on hold" in the Web of Science Master Journal List, because "[c]oncerns have been raised about the quality of the content published in this journal."[1] By May 2024, the journal had marked more than 60 papers with expressions of concern, typically citing "unusual changes" of authorship prior to publication and "potential undisclosed conflicts of interest" by reviewers and handling editors.[2] In December 2024 the journal got delisted by Clarivate.[3]

I'm very concerned about toxic chemicals in food and the environment in general but take care about the sources of these 'scare' stories in the media.

 

[Pythagorean]

I avoid plastic as much as possible and try to stick to whole foods, but it's inevitable. Microwaving plastic containers also seems sketchy to me (not anything magical about microwaves - mostly just that heated plastic off gasses at higher volumes and its in contact with the food). I also hate seeing the end of a cheap plastic spatula shred into my food. Unmarked plastics where you don't even know what kind it is or who manufactured it (often found in dollar stores) makes me nervous too. I know the evidence is complicated, but with something like stainless steel there's a lot less uncertainty.

How many different ways are there to make plastics how many different recipes? Some of them are bound to have contaminants, or more commonly lead to manufacturing mistakes, etc. Potential dangers with plastic aren't just limited to being biochemical or environmental. I remember finding a sharp sliver of the lid of my salad container in my salad or seeing them break off when opening a container.

They're just generally not a standardized material, they're an ongoing exploration in materials science, and you don't know what you're going to get when you go to the market. Especially when the plastic isn't labelled or marked and its an imported good.

That being said, the effort to go no-plastic would be tremendous for me. I do appreciate individually wrapped packages in some situations (like on the road), because I can be sure that food doesn't get contaminated or compromised (e.g. getting wet or pilfered by insects and vermin). I get get a lot of use out of disposable plastic containers before disposing them. Sandwich baggies are great storage containers for small items. These were all very convenient when raising children and packing school lunches and trying to anticipate their appetite in general when not at home. As a, more or less, independent adult, it's a lot easier to reduce plastic use (but still very difficult to eliminate).

 

[Laroxe]

This is one of those issues that is unfortunately riddled with accurate information and realistic anxieties, the world of plastics is complex, we know that some have known toxicity and some can be reactive. We are amassing a large amount of information about potential risks, while at the same time, we have virtually no information about the health effects of plastics in relation to food safety. Can we reliably estimate the harm caused by exposure to plastics, how many people have died because of acute exposure? I would guess none, I think the number with chronic exposure wouldn't be much higher. Of course, we do have at least some data that could help in assessments of safety, there continue to be communities that have little or no access to plastics. Now, while the millions of deaths that occur annually from gastrointestinal infections can be associated with a wide range of risks, I think the safety of food packaging will have a role in this. I think an important issue in these debates is in the recognition we cannot live without risk, in this, all solutions cause new problems.

In issues like this there are strong bias's at work, including in the sciences that support the widespread view that what is natural is good, while manufactured is bad. I suspect that this has a huge influence in all sorts of areas in the food sciences. People are happy to splash all sorts of highly toxic chemicals around in kitchens and on food preparation areas, occasionally adding aerosolised chemicals into this mix. We used these because we know that they kill most cells exposed to them. We have also, since we largely solved the problem of getting adequate nutrition, shifted our beliefs about what has value, foods with high nutritional density are now bad, while foods described as natural or whole are the ones approved of. Something people rarely consider is that plants don't want to be eaten and have had millions of years in which to perfect avast array of poisons with which to kill their predators. We have only really used plastics for around 120 years and with no real intention to poison each other, and yet this is what we worry about.

I really think the best we can do is reduce the risks that occur as a result of exposure to all sorts of chemicals in our environment to individuals with a huge variation in sensitivity to their effects. It actually very difficult to get clear generalisable figures, we even produce our own poisons. This doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention to these issues, but we need to put the potential threat into context. I suspect that the best evidence we have so far would clearly show that significantly more people have died from the effects of drinking water than from the effects of plastics in widespread use. The phrase widespread use is important because it suggests a natural experiment in which obvious toxicity would quickly become visible.

 

[Fra]

Also a global perspective to all details...

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c05191

Climate change is also a significant threat to humans and things aren't going well.

Simlarly with electric cars. They are great but one needs to look at the the complete life cycle, including manufacturing and digging up minerals required for battery production to assess the overall benfits fairly, and how energy charging batteries are produced. Commercial forces that see a market opportunity generall present only the positive sides of things.

/Fredrik

 

[pinball1970]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165993624005971

This reviews papers regarding micro plastics and cell/tissue pathologies.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

I don't know much about microplastics but it seems they should be filter-out-able.
A home water purification system should take out most environmentally (water supply) problems.

I think I read that microplastics can be readily found in sink mount RO filtered water since the membranes themselves are plastic. I don't think microplastics are avoidable.

Since plastics, and by extensions microplastics, have been around widely since the 1960's I'd imagine we would have seen something in the data by now since the children born in that timeframe should be pushing into their 60's now.

Life expectancy has increased every decade since then. Not so good things have increased as well, like early onsent cancer incidence. Too many variables to pin that one on microplastics though. I had stage one early onset colorectal cancer that was removed via colonoscopy. Was it microplastics, some other environmental factor, or did I just lose (slash win I guess in a way for that many oncogene mutations to build up?) the genetic lottery? That was slightly over three years ago now. I just think if there was a definite smoking gun from microplastics we would have saw it in the data by now.

 

[LightningInAJar]

My wife and I have been slowly trying to phase out plastic from our lives and well it's mostly impossible, but we've been making a large effort with food packaging, containers, and beverages. We've been switching to glass and aluminum containers/bottles. Between the microplastics, toxins, and not to mention trash, we hope to make a small difference in our bodies and environment. Anyone else?

This thread was prompted by my reading of this article this morning:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/24/health/breast-cancer-food-storage-chemicals/index.html

Also was learning about the oil industry's lies about recycling plastic on NPR today. 99% of plastic is not recycled.

I recently listened to a Q&A with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She said there might of been a study suggesting that oats may contain ingredients that help remove forever materials from the body. I was going to read more into it myself, but if true that seems interesting.

 

[gleem]

I recently listened to a Q&A with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. She said there might of been a study suggesting that oats may contain ingredients that help remove forever materials from the body. I was going to read more into it myself, but if true that seems interesting.

It is the soluble fiber beta-glucan in oats that reduces the body burden of PFASs in mice. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39647509/

 

[Cepacia]

What are the "toxic" chemicals here?

 

[Cepacia]

What are the "toxic" chemicals of concern here?
Plastic recycling is so limited, black plastic isn't much of an issue.

 

[Cepacia]

It is the soluble fiber beta-glucan in oats that reduces the body burden of PFASs in mice. see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39647509/

Think we should read the entire report rather than abstract. the study was confounded by greater exposure/ dosage of the glucan group that required authors to adjust stats ("relative to overall exposure") - and that a significant difference, esp. in that context, may not mean a clinically important difference.
Does anyone have the entire report?

 

[Tom.G]

A quick read of the Sciencedirect article seems to be a synopsis of the 76 listed references.

I doubt there are many here willing to wade through that pile of paper!

The reference to the National Institutes of Health grant (R21 ES032882, JJS) leads to only two seemingly unrelated titles.

Let us know what you find.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Cepacia]

Thanks Tom - the limited PFAS/oat fiber (is that the on you meant?) article viewed sci direct is an exp report rather than synopsis. It did have one ref relevant reporting 4-8% decrease with elevated fiber intake. Wonder at the practical significance of that.

 

[Cepacia]

One could add plastic cooking utensils, e.g., black plastic spatulas.


https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2024/10/black-plastic-spatula-flame-retardants/680452/

One might need a subscription to read the entire article.
ion of flame retardents

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024...k-plastic-study-authors-say-it-doesnt-matter/

Huge math error corrected in black plastic study; authors say it doesn’t matter​

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352402811X

Corrigendum to ‘From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling’ [Chemosphere 365 (2024) 143319]​

The evil ZERO strikes again.

Maybe sloppy science strikes again.

 

[Laroxe]

Thanks Tom - the limited PFAS/oat fiber (is that the on you meant?) article viewed sci direct is an exp report rather than synopsis. It did have one ref relevant reporting 4-8% decrease with elevated fiber intake. Wonder at the practical significance of that.

I do wonder if this sort of article is worth the bother, it's pretty well established that the soluble fibre in oats slows the absorption of all sorts of things. It's often recommended in type 2 diabetes, as it's a useful way to reduce the rapid increase in blood sugar after meals. Some people consider the soluble fibre found in oats to be anti-nutrients, as they have the capacity to bind to some essential nutrients in the diet and prevent their absorption. This capacity is increasingly recognised in a variety of plants as a defence against their predators, while in most cases the effect seems to be one of restricting any nutritional value to the predator, some plants have been shown to induce deficiency states. If oats do reduce absorption of microplastics, it's probably as a result of this effect and so this does seem credible, but essentially meaningless.

It's still not well explained how the microplastics found in various organs got there, we still don't have a clear picture of their absorption and distribution in the body. Many of the studies claim to find microplastics in areas of the body that have particular protections in place to prevent pathogens and harmful chemicals gaining access, the brain is a good example of such an area. The brain, is isolated from and effectively protected against many of the bodies own chemicals physiological products that could damage it and many of the drugs we use have difficulty accessing this area this is despite the fact that these are all highly soluble. Actually, the detection of microplastics in tissue is technically problematic, they are usually of a size that make them difficult to actually identify as distinct chemicals and the techniques used to identify them are still being developed. Many of the studies describe distinct particles visible under a microscope. The problem is that people also remember studies and articles, usually supported by photographic evidence, of animals containing more plastic than the rest of their body mass, the plastic being of a size that the animal could never have ingested. This sort of scientific fraud became so laughable the plastics involved have had to rapidly reduce in size, simply to be credible, even so there are still serious issues in explaining how these plastics maintain their structure and distinct chemistry. Something our digestive system is designed to destroy. It's only relatively recently that some techniques have been shown to be reliable in identifying microplastics but there are few studies that have described reliable ways of isolating tissue samples to prevent contamination. I remember reading about these issues, but that was some time ago, and I haven't seen anything more recently, so maybe it's all changed, but personally I doubt it.

There is such a vast array of variables that impact on health and the rates of disease, I simply don't think it's reasonable to attribute harm to such a common environmental contaminant when, despite the incidence of some specific health problems changing human health and human lifespan have continued to improve. Even when we do have evidence that some chemicals are possibly carcinogenic for most, the evidence is weak to non-existent. I noticed that Glyphosate has been mentioned as one such product, it was in fact developed to be safer than other herbicides and the evidence used to introduce some limited control was based on campaigning rather than science. People tend to focus on diseases like cancer, it induces fear and sells newspapers, however that doesn't change the fact that cancer is overwhelmingly a disease of old age, the effects of environmental exposures are relatively tiny with a few notable and well described exceptions, but getting that sort of evidence is proving to be difficult, and really if the risk was there, it shouldn't be.

 

[Rive]

The problem is that people also remember studies and articles, usually supported by photographic evidence, of animals containing more plastic than the rest of their body mass, the plastic being of a size that the animal could never have ingested. This sort of scientific fraud became so laughable the plastics involved have had to rapidly reduce in size, simply to be credible, even so there are still serious issues in explaining how these plastics maintain their structure and distinct chemistry. Something our digestive system is designed to destroy.

For the log.

I don't know what photographs do you refer to (and by these days, making a 'rare photo about a snake swallowing an elephant' is just a 'hold my beer' indeed), but the issue about birds and other animals ingesting absurd amount of trash is very real.
And while at sea digestive systems are usually very good at making very big fish into soup fast, they are not so good at getting rid of trash with high acid resistance.

But: this is a very different, mostly mechanical issue, not related to microplastics or the chemical additives of plastics.

 

[Cepacia]

Not sure there are legal "toxic" materials in plastics as additives and polymers should be within GRAS
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-177

Microplastics would be another matter. Certainly there are many reports of microplastics but I'm not aware of data indicating immediate release in packaged goods.