Should you throw away your black plastic spatula? A recent study Alarming levels of numerous flame retardants in common black plastic items (including cooking utensils, toys and hair products) have many people taking stock at once Considering the range of plastic cookware inks and wood or metal alternatives. And the reasons for concern were understandable: the findings of the study, published in chemosphere, He highlighted the potential health effects of exposure to flame retardants, particularly decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE), a US Environmental Protection Agency chemical. Banned in 2021 for him apparent links to cancer and reproductive, developmental and immunological toxicity.
But this week the authors of the study published it a correction this suggests that exposure to decaBDE in the products tested is not as close to the EPA’s safety reference level as originally thought. The decaBDE exposure they calculated from the screened products is still correct, but it is one tenth of the reference dose. The study miscalculated the comparison by an order of magnitude.
The amount of flame retardants in these products “is not that harmful, in terms of EPA guidance, as (researchers) originally said, although, with these chemicals, they can be harmful when you’re at risk. exposed to small amounts for long periods of time“says Andrew Turner, a biogeochemist at the University of Plymouth in England, who was not involved in research on consumer plastic and recycling. “It’s hard to put numbers on these chemicals.”
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The authors of the study he apologized Because of the error they claim that the “calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper.”
“Our results still show that when toxic additives are used in plastic, products made with recycled content that do not require flame retardancy can significantly contaminate,” says Megan Liu, author of the latest study and Science and Policy Manager at Toxic. -Free Future, an environmental health research and advocacy group. “The products found in this study that contained dangerous flame retardants were products with a high exposure potential, such as things that touch our food, as well as toys that come into contact with children.”
Why can some black plastics be flame retardant?
Certain products require flame retardants (often including computers, televisions and other common electronic items) to comply with fire safety regulations. To reduce the amount of electronic waste and fossil fuels needed to make new plastics, some of these items are recycled into black plastic. But the problem is that “you can also recycle the flame retardants and other chemicals associated with that plastic,” says Stuart Harrad, an environmental chemist at the University of Birmingham in England, who was not involved in the paper. “Now, to some extent, it’s fine, I think, if you only recycle plastic into uses like TV sets, where you have to meet fire safety standards. But the point here is that that doesn’t happen.”
The main goal of the new research was to identify any flame retardant chemicals in various common products. The researchers screened 203 items, from plastic sushi take-out trays to toy necklaces, and 17 of them were contaminated with high levels of flame retardants. Fourteen of these products had high levels of decaBDE.
The US has largely banned decaBDE and other polybrominated diphenyl ether-based flame retardants. Newer electronic products use safer flame retardants, but older electronics containing decaBDE may still be in many homes or may have recently been thrown out for recycling, Turner says. “When you talk about some electronic devices, they last a long time,” he added. These old devices may now only go to recycling plants.
The new study’s findings are generally consistent with evidence that recycled — and flame retardant — plastics can end up in toys and kitchen utensils, Harrad says. But it is not clear whether the mere presence of flame retardants in a kitchen appliance poses a health threat to humans; there are many driving factorsincluding source, dose, duration of exposure, and other chemicals that may be present. In a 2018 study, Harrad and his colleagues tested the potential exposure of black plastic kitchenware and found that uptake through the skin was spotty. But when tested in long cooking experiments with hot oil, On average, about 20 percent of the flame emissions in an appliance are transferred to the oil. “That’s really because oil, particularly hot oil, is going to be a pretty good way to extract these chemicals,” Harrad says.
How did the miscalculation happen?
The authors of the new study calculated the potential human exposure to decaBDE from plastic products using a calculation from Harrad’s 2018 study. They applied this calculation to the median levels of decaBDE detected in the products they tested. This amounted to 34,700 nanograms of decaBDE per day. They then compared these figures EPA reference dose 7,000 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day. (Some researchers claim that this measurement has been taken out laboratory tests and animal modelsnot a direct human test). To better assess the human risk, the scientists calculated a reference dose based on a 60-kg (132-pound) person and initially found 42,000 ng per day, alarmingly close to the 34,700 ng per day of exposure estimated from the new data. . But 7,000 multiplied by 60 is actually 420,000. This may have been a simple math error, but the correction massively reduces the amount of exposure to the maximum acceptable limit.
The miscalculated figure “put the levels we saw in our study into context, thinking it might be helpful for people,” says Liu. “This is really just part of our research, which is not even part of our main findings.”
He and his co-authors stress that the error should not detract from one of the main conclusions of the study: that none of these flame retardant chemicals should be found in these products, which are banned under any circumstances. first of all
“They’re probably hitting their heads in frustration when they found out they made that miscalculation,” says Harrad, adding that the rest of the findings are “absolutely believable.”
“Research highlights that we still haven’t solved that; we’re still finding that these chemicals are making their way into new products that contain recycled plastics,” says Harrad. “We need to step up efforts to isolate these chemicals from waste and ensure they are not recycled.”
So should you really ditch the black plastic spatula? Harrad says you should avoid leaving it in a hot pan or pot for long periods of time. Some experts advise against it reheating food in black plastic containersalthough studies have not confirmed whether the chemicals enter the food or not. It’s important that “if you see that your black utensil is damaged in some way, just (take it off) and go find something else,” says Turner: Plastic pieces can break off in food.
When looking for new cookware, Turner says it would be more sustainable and safer to reduce the use of black plastic items and go for a more easily recyclable material or color. Liu says wood, stainless steel or silicone products are safer alternatives. He added, however, that people cannot “shop” their way out of a larger social problem. “We can’t expect everyone to immediately switch to safer alternatives,” says Liu. “That’s why we’ve ultimately called for greater regulatory action at both the corporate and government levels to regulate and reduce these harmful chemicals.”
