PlasticList Report

Six months ago, we launched what seemed like a quick and easy project: to test 100 everyday foods for the presence of plastic chemicals. Sounds like fun, right? Maybe a two-week project? That’s what we thought, too.

Our interest was sparked by recent discussion of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs):

• Minderoo 2024 Plastic Health Umbrella Review
• Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race
• Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things
• Consumer Reports: The Plastic Chemicals Hiding in Your Food
• Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: Threats to Human Health
• Dr. Shanna Swan on the Joe Rogan show

Our chemicals of interest are used to improve the performance of plastic. One class is phthalates, used to make plastics softer and more flexible, and another class is bisphenols, used to make plastics harder (e.g. BPA). They aren’t intentionally added to food, but they can end up in food during production or by leaching from packaging. What makes these chemicals interesting is that some of them are known to be hormonally active in humans and believed to affect developing embryos and adults in different ways.