Thousands of chemicals enter food stored in plastic containers
A new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology suggests that thousands of chemicals, a significant proportion of which scientists know nothing about, are leaching into foods from plastic containers.
“We found as many as 9,936 different chemicals in a single plastic product used as food packaging,” said study co-author Professor Martin Wagner, in a media release.
Significant numbers of these chemicals, like bisphenol A and phthalates, are linked to a variety of health problems, from reproductive issues to diabetes and even heart disease and forms of cancer.
Many of the chemicals, however, are totally unknown to science.
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Researchers from Norway tested 36 different plastic food-packaging products from Germany. Norway, South Korea, the UK and the US.
They extracted all the chemicals from each plastic product using a solvent and then subjected them to a battery of tests to see whether they would activate or interfere with specific receptors in the human body. These included receptors for hormones including estrogen and testosterone and for key compounds that regulate the body’s metabolic rate.
The researchers found that 33 of the 36 plastic products contained chemicals that interfere with fat blood-sugar regulation and fat metabolism. Chemicals that block testosterone were found in 14 products, and chemcals that mimic estrogen—so called “xenoestrogens”—were found in 18.
Researchers also discovered specific patterns of leaching in their study. Plastics made from PVC, PUR and LDPE leached more chemicals into food compared to PET and HDPE plastics.
Coloured and printed plastics also tended to leach more chemicals than plain plastics.
The type of food stored in a container also influenced the amount of leaching. Fatty, oil and acidic foods were the worst culprits for drawing chemicals out of the packaging.
The researchers behind the study argue that we need a new approach to the manufacture of plastic products, one that relies on a simpler designs involving known chemicals that are considered to be safe, rather than mixtures of hundreds or thousands of chemicals many of which have no safety data at all.
“These and previous findings show that plastic exposes us to toxic chemicals. They support the theory that we need to redesign plastic to make it safer,” said Professor Wagner.
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