Plastics Contain Thousands More Chemicals Than Thought, and Most Are Unregulated, Report Finds

A new database catalogs 16,000 chemicals found in plastics and identifies more than 4,200 that are potentially hazardous to human health and the environment
Plastics contain thousands of chemicals that are potentially hazardous to human health and may leach into the environment or food—but the vast majority of them are not currently regulated, according to a new report and database funded by the Norwegian Research Council.
The report, released last week, expands the number of known chemicals in plastics from 13,000 to 16,000. Despite about 6 percent of these being subject to global regulations, more than a quarter are thought to be toxic, the researchers found.
“Only 980 of those highly hazardous chemicals have been regulated by agencies around the world, leaving us with 3,600 chemicals that are unregulated—and these are only the known chemicals,” Martin Wagner, first author of the report and a biologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, says to CNN’s Sandee LaMotte. “There are many more unregulated chemicals that we’re just unaware of how they may be hazardous to our own health or the environment.”
“This is the most comprehensive report to date,” Bethanie Carney Almroth, an ecotoxicologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden who did not contribute to the project, tells Nature News’ Nicola Jones. “The numbers presented are jarring.”
At this point in human history, plastics are everywhere—their tiny fragments pollute the environment, as well as both bottled and tap water. Humans produce about 400 million metric tons of plastic waste each year. But these plastics also contain chemicals that can cause problems for both our bodies and the planet—exposure to these toxins has been linked to health problems including cancers, birth defects and endocrine system disruption.
“We’re finding hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic chemicals in people now, and some of them have been linked to adverse health outcomes,” Jane Muncke, a co-author of the report and managing director of the Food Packaging Forum non-profit in Switzerland, says to Reuters’ Gloria Dickie.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/plastics-contain-thousands-more-chemicals-than-thought-and-most-are-unregulated-report-finds-180983967/
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