Boxes, utensils, cutlery, plates, glasses, molds, but also appliances: robot, teapot, blender, pot and other helicopters: plastic. Since the synthesis of the first plastics derived from the oil a hundred years ago, the plastic has become essential in the kitchen.
But what do these plastics use to prepare, cook, reheat or keep the meals contained? Plastics are composed not only of polymers (a chemist composed of large molecules) “but also a mixture of different additives, which give plastic properties: flexibility, rigidity, fire resistance,” explains the National Agency for Food Health Safety (ANSE).
Should we be careful? “The polymers for food use are less aditivated,” says BFMTV.com Jean-francois Gérard, Professor of Insa Lyon and Deputy Scientific Director of the CNRS Institute of Chemistry.
“These are only validated and authorized polymers that meet the standards, especially within the European Union.”
But he acknowledges that “there is never a zero danger.” Especially because these polymers deteriorate over time. “We know that when they degrade, they release very small particles: micro and nano plastic that also release additives”, a point for BFMTV.com Mathilde Body-Malapel, a researcher specialized in immunotoxicology at the University of Lille.
4,000 “dangerous” chemicals
The additives presented as “potential chemical pollutants” by handles. “Everything can be toxic,” says Mathilde Body-Malapel, a specialist in contaminants on human health. The best known are bisphanols and phthalates, proven endocrine disruptors. But there are many others.
“For some of the chemical compounds added to plastic, its toxicity has been studied very little.”
The parliamentary office for the evaluation of scientific and technological elections (Opecst), composed of deputies and senators, evokes in a report on the impacts of plastics on human health published last November a total of 4,000 chemicals, of the 16,000 identified, which “can be classified as dangerous.” With human pollution that seems substantial: “25% of the 14,000 chemicals contained in plastic materials in contact with food have been identified in the human body,” writes the office.
The report also points to the carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprooxic character of these substances, but also their links with genital malformations in newborns, a delay or alteration of cognitive development in children, but also their toxicity for certain organs, type 2 diabetes and obesity. “The gaps in the evaluation of chemicals lead to the undervaluation of their danger,” the authors are alarmed.
“Microplastics are present in all human organs and accumulate there.”
Muman situations of everyday life
Because substances contained in a plastic object can be released in the food or drink it contains. Mathilde Body-Malapel evokes a “small degradation”, which means a small pollution, with each use. “These are minimal traces that are found, but anyway are traces of nanoplastic.”
“Traces, more traces, more traces, can end in potentially toxic quantities.”
A pollution that would occur in “banal” situations of the newspaper, continues the researcher Mathilde Body-Malapel. A plastic cup placed in a refrigerator full of ice cubes, the transition to the microwave, “even with the so -called microwave containers,” she specifies, or the food delivered in a cardboard container.
Because in the last case, the container is not just cardboard. It is often covered with polylactic acid, called Pla, a polymer obtained from plants. And in accordance with a study transmitted by the Polytechnic Institute of Paris, the toxicity of these bioplastics would be equivalent to that of ordinary plastics made of oil.
Deformed striped plastics, which change shadow …
“The toxicity is minimized,” is reassuring Jean-Francois Gérard, also director of recycling, recyclability and reuse of CNRS materials. “Additives are worked (food containers, editor’s note) not to migrate.” But if he affirms that these migrations remain “under control”, he acknowledges that problematic compounds can be formed “during use, with degradation, scratches, aging or passages under the garant sponge.”
But the main problem, according to him, remains the misuse of these plastic containers. Like a container that is deformed from the microwave, a box whose background is dyed with the color of the food it contains, of a nonstick pan that becomes adherent … “This means that the nature of the plastic has changed.”
“We know well the toxicity of each substance, but depending on the use that consumers make, this can be extremely different.”
However, certain situations do not fall under misuse. Because some compounds of these plastics are soluble in oil, others in the water. Therefore, they can contaminate food without the user having proper use with these plastics.
The test is with bottled water: a study has shown that it contains on average 240,000 fragments of plastic detectable per liter, that is, nanoplastic so small that the organs can penetrate. Fragments that would come significantly from the bottle itself.
The “cocktail effects” of these substances
“We don’t know the effects of the cocktail of these additives,” that is, the effects they can have when associated with each other, Mathilde Body-Malapel still points out, which has remarkably studied the effect of microplastics ingested through food in the intestine.
What Opecst also denounces: “Information about its persistence, its bioaccumulation or its mobility is more difficult to find to the extent that these criteria are not always preserved in government evaluations.”
Recently, an American study has indicated the presence of chemicals that delay the flame in black plastic kitchen utensils. A toxic presence that would be explained by the recycling of electronic devices that were originally contained in flame delays.
For Jean -Francois Gérard, it is unlikely that this type of situation occurs in France: plastic of electronic devices that cannot be found in plastic in food, according to him. But he acknowledges that the recycling of plastics still raises questions.
“Every time a plastic is implemented, there are additive degradations.”
Do not warm up in the microwave
This can form children, aggregate unintentional substances. These are “impurities from other chemical substances, or derived products that are formed during the manufacture of plastics, or degradation products that appear during use,” Opecst details.
Nias potentially harmful. Jean-Francois Gérard recognizes that some of these substances that are formed involuntarily remain little known, with also unknown concentrations.
What to do to minimize the risk of contamination? “The first prevention is to avoid single-use plastics,” recommends Mathilde Body-Malapel firmly. Some are already prohibited, others will be in the coming years, recalls the Ministry of Economy.
Second recommendation: Do not hot the microwave of plastic containers, “even if they are said to be microwave,” insists the researcher. Finally, favor glass containers, whether dishes or conservation boxes. As for the kitchen utensils, the spatulas and the cutting boards, they opt for those in stainless steel or wood, which are washed well for the latter.
“We don’t have to launch all its plastic containers,” he adds. “But we can start by not heating them.” And if they are used to store food, it remains at a constant temperature, that does not heat up and that food does not remain too long.
Source: BFM TV
