How a simple math error sparked a panic about black plastic kitchen utensils - National Post
It turns out that black plastic kitchenware is much less toxic than a recent study erroneously led us to believe. Photo by Getty ImagesArticle contentThe simple arithmetic error that unnecessarily sent countless plastic spatulas into the trash over a toxic chemical scare came to light a few days ago as Joe Schwarcz, director of McGill University’s Office for Science and Society, sat reading a research paper in his office in the Otto Maass Chemistry building on Montreal’s Sherbrooke Street.
“I follow everything on plastics, that’s one of my areas,” the well-known chemist and science popularizer said in an interview. He’s also a “stickler for detail on numbers,” so when he saw 60 multiplied by 7,000 to get 42,000, his eyes widened. “I’m not bad at math,” he said.
Plastics rarely make news like this. From Newsmax to Food and Wine, and from the Daily Mail to CNN, the media uptake was enthusiastic on a paper published in October in the peer-reviewed journal Chemosphere.
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“Your cool black kitchenware could be slowly poisoning you, study says. Here’s what to do,” said the LA Times. “Yes, throw out your black spatula,” said the San Francisco Chronicle. Salon was most blunt: “Your favorite spatula could kill you,” it said.
The study, by researchers at the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, sought to determine whether black plastic household products sold in the U.S. contain brominated flame retardants, fire-resistant chemicals that are added to plastics for use in electronics, such as televisions, to prevent accidental fires.
The hypothesis was that these chemicals are in black plastic kitchenware because electronic waste, such as televisions, is sometimes recycled back into household items, such as spatulas. Ironically, this is because black plastic is not recyclable by traditional means because it does not reflect the infrared light used in sorting machines, but it is commercially desirable, so producers seek out cheap sources from recycled electronics, often in Asia.
Through a series of estimates and laboratory experiments, the researchers in Chemosphere aimed to measure how much of this flame retardant toxin was getting out of the spatulas during cooking and into the human body.
