Get Plastic Out Of Your Diet

August 31, 2006

PAUL GOETTLICH 16nov03

A similar version of this was published in

Living Nutrition magazine v.15, Spring (April) 2004

You Are What You Eat

When you eat or drink things that are stored in plastic, taste it, smell it,

wear it, sit on it, and so on, plastic is incorporated into you. In fact,

the plastic gets into the food and food gets into the plastic and you. So,

quite literally, you are what you eat[1]. . . drink. . . and breathe —

plastic! These plastics are called " Food Contact Substances " by the US Food

and Drug Administration (FDA), but until April 2002, they were called

" Indirect Food Additives. " [2] The new name is cleansed of the implication

that plastic gets into your food. In spite of this semantic deception,

migration is a key assumption of the FDA.

According to Dr. George Pauli, Associate Director of Science Policy, FDA

Office of Food Additive Safety, the regulations mandated in 1958 assume that

all plastics migrate toxins into the food they contact. Migration is the

movement of free toxins from plastic into the substances they contact — in

this case it’s your food. The manufacturer must " prove " that the migrations

fall within an acceptable range.[3] I agree with the assumption of migration

from all plastics, but I find a critical disparity between the level of

science employed by the regulations and the current scientific knowledge

regarding the levels at which they migrate and the effects they can have. In

particular, I am more concerned with extremely low concentrations. There is

also a conflict of interest in allowing the manufacturer to submit its own

testing to the FDA as proof of anything. We invite the fox into the henhouse

and are surprised when there’s nothing left but eggshells and feathers.

The amount of migration and corresponding toxicological effects are highly

disputed topics, even within the FDA, which has commonly acquiesced to

industry in its regulation of technologies that are used in the production

of our foods — plastics, pesticides, growth hormones, irradiation, and

microwave. This is clear from the mass of expert and citizen testimony

against such technologies that regulatory agencies bend over backwards and

jump through flaming hoops to please their corporate clients, as they are

called.

There is a worst plastic for any purpose — polyvinylchloride (vinyl or PVC).

However, there is no best plastic to contain food or drink. It is my hope

that this article will clarify this viewpoint. By the time you’ve finished

reading, you should be closer to forming your own evaluation of plastics.

Its Uses

Plastic is used in contact with nearly all packaged foods. Most cardboard

milk containers are now coated with plastic[4] rather than wax. It is

sprayed on both commercial and organic produce to preserve its freshness.

Plastic is even used to irrigate, mulch, wrap, and transport organic food.

Organic bananas now come from wholesalers with a sticky plastic wrapping the

cut stem to protect the bananas from a black mold.[5] The mold is controlled

on non-organic bananas by dipping the cut ends in a fungicide. Chiquita

would only reveal that it’s a " food grade plastic, " which means that it

meets minimum regulatory standards. But since it has a sticky feel to it, I

suspect it either carries a fungicide or its physical characteristics act as

a fungicide. Either way, if it is or acts as a fungicide, the EPA regulates

it as a pesticide, which fungicides are considered a subset of. [6] In a

way, this is similar to the regulation of corn that is genetically

engineered to carry the toxic bacterium bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) in every

cell. Rather than the FDA regulating it as a food, the EPA regulates it as a

pesticide. Incredible as it may seem, they see our food as a pesticide.

According to the FDA scientist I spoke with, it’s a proprietary formula that

he doesn’t know about and would offer nothing beyond that. Disclosure of

proprietary information is a criminal offense.[7] All plastic manufacturers

hide behind trade secrets. This is true with nearly all consumer products.

It is quite impossible to know the chemical makeup of any plastic without

paying a substantial amount of money for an independent lab analysis.

How is it made?

In a nutshell, plastic is made by combining monomers into polymers under

great heat and pressure in a process called polymerization. Each

manufacturer has its own proprietary formula for each plastic. And each uses

a variety of additives such as plasticizers for flexibility, UV filters for

protection from sunlight, antistatic agents, flame-retardants, colorants,

antioxidants, and more. Heavy metals such as cadmium, mercury, and lead are

common additives. There are also chemicals used to facilitate production

such as mold releases, and countless other toxic chemicals regularly added

to plastic consumer goods without our knowledge or approval. Many of the

products and byproducts of the intermediary steps of plastics production are

used in other plastics or industrial processes and products such as

pesticides or fertilizer. For holistic thinkers, the mention of plastics and

pesticides in the same sentence should begin an informative thought process,

while keeping in mind that they all have complete regulatory approval.

The True Cost of Plastic

Plastic is ubiquitous in our lives because it is convenient and relatively

inexpensive. It is advertised as safe and that it saves lives.[8] Its safety

is based on outdated science and regulations. And while it saves lives in

the short run, the record against plastic is looking quite different.

Its convenience comes from being lightweight and its ability to absorb

impact shock without breaking, which on its own merit, is hard to argue

with. It comes in an endless range of colors and finishes, is pliable, and

is easily formed and molded. Most would say it's a perfect material, right?

Here’s where the bad news begins.

Its inexpensiveness is the result of a large portion of the costs associated

with its life — production, use and disposal — being put onto society as a

whole. This unsolicited financial burden on society manifests itself as

increased taxes to finance municipal curbside recycling programs, landfill

space, and incineration. It also increases health care and insurance costs

as a result of its incineration polluting the air, water, and food. I’ll

give much more detail on the negative health effects later, but for now,

suffice to say that a full and truthful lifecycle analysis would reveal that

the long-term negative health and socioeconomic effects at the local and

global scales far outweigh the benefits realized by the use of plastics.

What's so bad about plastic?

For decades, the plastics industry has deceived us with assurances that the

polymerization process binds the constituent chemicals together so perfectly

that the resulting plastic is completely nontoxic and passes through us

without a hitch. In spite of this industry disinformation,[9] the

polymerization process is never 100% perfect. Logically then, there are

always toxicants available for migration into the many things they contact —

your food, air, water, skin, and so on. Both the FDA and the industry know

this. However, because of many millions of dollars worth of advertising and

public relations work, consumers are educated to think that plastics are

safe.

The additives utilized are not bound to the already imperfect plastic,

leaving them quite free to migrate. One quick example: without a plasticizer

additive, PVC would be rigid. The plasticizer resides between the molecules

of the PVC, acting as a lubricant that allows those molecules to slide by

each other, and thus flex. Many containers used for food or water are made

of it. Even Barbie dolls are made of it. The plasticizer migrates out from

day one. And as it ages, the migration can visibly weep out of it.[10]

Plastics, their additives and other processing chemicals can be toxic at

extremely low concentrations. In fact, some are significantly more toxic at

extremely low concentrations than at much higher concentrations, which is

contrary to the FDA scientist’s paradigm that, " The dose makes the poison, "

meaning that the higher the concentration, the more toxic something is. It

is an interpretation of the writings of Paracelsus, an alchemist who wrote

in the 16th century that, " Alle Ding sind Gift und nichts ohne Gift; alein

die Dosis macht das ein Ding kein Gift ist " [All things are poison and

nothing without poison; alone it is the dose that makes a thing no

poison].[11] It’s now 500 years later and that assumption of Paracelsus is

still the basis for the many regulations. Except on chemical-by-chemical

investigations by various independent, institutional, and academic labs,

plastics are not explored for harmful effects or regulated in any meaningful

way.

Extremely Low Doses and Synergy

Since it is known that all plastics migrate into food, it behooves us to

look for the evidence at meaningful levels of detection, at and below

single-digit parts-per-trillion (ppt) or ng/kg. Extremely low doses are

especially relevant because they can upset the natural balance of the

endocrine system. To paraphrase the report of an EPA workshop in 1996,

endocrine disruptors (EDs) are external agents that interfere with the

production, release, transport, metabolism, binding, action or elimination

of natural hormones in the body responsible for maintaining internal

balances and the regulation of developmental processes.[12]

Current knowledge of EDs turns the work of Paracelsus — that guy born in the

15th century — upside down. Some chemicals can be more toxic at extremely

low doses than extremely high doses. The timing of the exposure can be much

more relevant than its dose. Most vulnerable times are in periods of rapid

growth, such as those in embryo and children right up to puberty. They can

be exposed in the womb and before conception, if sperm and/or ovum are

contaminated. The maladies of the children of Gulf War veterans are a prime

example of this type of exposure.[13]

Synergy is an important issue that is mostly disregarded by the FDA. Many

will even debunk the idea that low dose synergy is real. In combination with

other commonly used products, the toxicity of the migratory chemicals from

plastics can be potentiated by synergy. A synergy can occur between two or

more chemicals that elevate the combination’s toxicity to hundreds of times

greater than that of the individual chemicals. Besides plastics, other

household chemicals can be part of a synergy with plastics.

Nuclear radiation can also severely damage the endocrine system. According

to Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiological Physics at the

University of Pittsburgh Medical School, the synergy between nuclear

radiation and chemical toxicants is well documented.[14] Gulf War vets (I

and II) were and still are being exposed to depleted uranium (DU) from the

tons of armour-busting shells they fired being distributed across the Gulf

Region as an aerosol smaller than the size of a virus.[15] The hazardous

materials (MOPP) suit that soldiers are given do not protect them from the

infinitesimally small particles of DU because the high efficiency

particulate air (HEPA) filters do not work below 1/10 of a micron (0.1µ).

Each one of us is exposed to extremely low levels of radiation from the

nuclear power plants scattered about the US.[16]

On the home front, even the products in our day-in and day-out humdrum lives

are coated with, contain, or are made of synthetic chemicals that can

interact synergistically with each other. The list is endless but includes

beauty products such as nail polish, eyeliner, deodorant and aftershave;

household cleaning products such as tile and carpet cleaners, air fresheners

that are solid, plug-in, or spray. Even gas and diesel engine exhaust are

included. Quite frankly, the FDA doesn’t even consider all sources of a

chemical in its review of industry product applications.

Consider that there between 87,000 to 100,000 chemicals in commercial

production. At the time I wrote this, there were 22,241,247 organic and

inorganic substances registered with Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS)

registry.[17] Only eight months before that, there were 1,112,474 fewer

chemicals.[18] They are regulated and tested in what I would call a " don’t

look — don’t see " style of science that boggles the minds of those who look

just a little below the surface of the happy little corporate-science myths.

The focus is on the wonders of plastic with a purposeful avoidance of the

painfully evident negative human and environmental health effects. Using the

more conservative 87,000 chemicals, there are approximately 1.063725377 x

1086,991 different combinations possible that could have a synergistic

effect on toxicity.[19] For the purposes of this article, that number is

roughly 1 with 87,000 zeros after it. Even if researchers had the time and

money to test them all, they still wouldn’t know what to look for, because

there is no precedent. In addition, one must account for the uniqueness of

each living organism and its unique environment, which further expand the

possible synergies and possibilities.

Water Stored in Plastic

Water bottles are be made from various types of plastic — polycarbonate

(PC), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), Polypropylene (PP), high-density

polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyvinyl chloride

(PVC or vinyl), and others. To reiterate, they all migrate to some degree. I

will focus on just one chemical that migrates out of one plastic that is

used to make products with high use and sales profiles.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a monomer used in the synthesis of PC plastics, epoxy

resins, and composites, as well as a heat stabilizer in PVC. The list of

products containing BPA is long. Some rigid containers such as water and

baby bottles are made of PC. The popular Nalgene® water bottles are made of

Lexan® brand PC. In the medical industry, it is used for syringes,

containers, lenses, and dental products. Keep in mind that the FDA regulates

only plastics in contact with foods and not any of the other exposures a

person might commonly experience every day at home, school, or the office.

Because the FDA approves plastics for specific uses rather than for

individual chemicals, BPA is not explicitly regulated.[20] It is important

to note that all exposures, no matter what origin, are relevant and

cumulative. Even other chemicals that act in the body in similar ways can be

part of the total effect. The body’s natural defenses try to breakdown

toxins as they enter. These are called metabolites and can be significantly

more toxic than the original chemical.

Today it is common that dentists coat children’s teeth with dental sealants

[21] that harden (polymerize) within the mouth. This exposure to BPA is

large enough to have biologic effects. [22] Just as with other plastics,

dental sealants polymerize imperfectly, leaving free monomers to be ingested

or absorbed through the skin within the mouth. When it comes to dental

solutions without plastic, the choices are limited. And I must say that I am

extremely frustrated by the situation. One orthodontist I spoke with creates

retainers from metal wire that can replace the standard polycarbonate ones.

In tooth replacement, even some materials that dentists call ceramic have a

polymer matrix. Gold caps or crowns are an excellent choice, but they too

are glued into place with a volatile polymer. By far, the best alternative

is to keep your teeth healthy by brushing and flossing regularly, and by

eating a healthy diet.

Food and beverages cans are coated with a BPA-containing plastic. During the

processing of canned food, it is sterilized in the can at 250°F for 1 hour.

Because heat increases its migration, this is an especially large exposure

for people who eat canned foods. As PC plastics grow old, BPA and other

chemicals are released. But even when they are new BPA migrates out of PC

plastic.

The Code of Federal Regulations section on PC plastics allows for migratory

chemicals in the hundreds of parts-per-million (ppm) range as well as a

percentage of the plastic’s total weight. While concentrations of ppm and

higher are relevant, there is vast area of exposure that falls well below

the FDA’s radar in the parts-per-trillion (ppt) range and lower. Testing

methods are available, but the cost would be far greater. Because the

industry is responsible for testing, it protests madly about the idea that

these concentrations are relevant. If the table was turned and the burden of

proof was on the consumer, the FDA would demand the most up to date testing

methods. A graphic example of 1 ppt is one drop of liquid in 660 rail tank

cars. That’s a train 6 miles long!

In the year 2000, Consumers Union (CU) tested water from five-gallon PC

plastic bottles for BPA, They found from 0.5 ppb to 11 ppb in water samples

from eight of the ten 5-gallon jugs.[23] After industry spin-meisters

discredited the study as being flawed, not many regulatory red flares were

sent up within the FDA. This type of industry disinformation is standard

operating procedure. Most times, the statements made could be compared it to

one child calling another derogatory names, hoping that the recipient will

become persona non grata with the other children. However, the CU study was

indeed valid and the concentrations of BPA that were found are extremely

relevant.

CU also found BPA in samples from baby bottles at worrisome levels.[24] CU

advised its readers to avoid exposure to BPA by " dispos[ing] of

polycarbonate baby bottles and replac[ing] them with bottles made of glass

or polyethylene, an opaque, less-shiny plastic that does not leach

bisphenol-A. " [25] That advice attracted the wrath of the plastics industry.

But I will go further and advise readers not to serve or store any food —

liquid or solid, water-based or fatty, hot or cold — in any plastic.

In April 2003, a study was published about BPA accidentally killing mice

that had been held in polycarbonate cages at a lab.[26] It was found

accidentally when it ruined a lab experiment that heated yeast in PC flasks

to find out if the yeast produced estrogens. It was discovered that BPA from

the PC flasks was the material that was estrogenic, and that it competed

with the natural estrogen in a rat’s body. [27] I asked one noted researcher

why labs still use plastics considering what it has been known since 1993

that BPA migrates and is hormonally active. The response was, " What are we

supposed to do, go back to glass? " The tone of voice made it seem as if I

had advised going back in time to live in the Stone Age. This is the state

of what is still amazingly called science. There is a lack of reason and

logic that goes well beyond what I knew possible before I began looking at

the many aspects of this technology. Truth is sought, but the obvious is

knocked to the ground and trampled over in the stampede to secure funding.

BPA’s Rap Sheet

The list of negative health effects associated in some way with exposure to

BPA is remarkably long. The most visible effect may be aneuploidy, a

chromosome abnormality found in more than 5% of pregnancies. Most aneuploid

fetuses die in utero. About one-third of all miscarriages are aneuploid,

making it the leading known cause of pregnancy loss. Among conceptions that

survive to term, aneuploidy is the leading genetic cause of developmental

disabilities and mental retardation. About 1 in 300 liveborn infants and 1

in 3 miscarriages are aneuploid. It is associated with Down syndrome,[28]

Patau syndrome, [29] Edwards syndrome,[30] Klinefelter syndrome, [31] Turner

syndrome, [32] Cri du chat syndrome, [33] and Alzheimer's disease.[34] And

each of these bears its own extensive list of maladies covering all parts

and functions of the human body — both physical and mental. The condition

at birth is directly related to the type of chromosome abnormality present

in the embryo at the time of conception.[35] It is well documented that

aneuploidy contributes to the increased risk of spontaneous abortion when

the female partner is older, but it is also thought that males more than 30

years old may increase the risk of spontaneous abortion when the female

partner is less than 30 years of age.[36]

Being one of many known endocrine disruptors, BPA affects development,

intelligence, memory, learning, and behavior, skeleton, body size and shape,

significant increase in prostate size, decreased epididymal weight and a

longer anogenital distance,[37] prostate cancer, [38] reduced sperm

count,[39] both physical and mental aspects of sexuality. It may have

something to do with obesity,[40] and so many more that a separate article

is required to list them all. In other words, if the fetus lives, any one or

many parts of its body can be permanently affected. The problems may become

evident at any age.

Alzheimer's disease generally occurs after the age of 50. In those afflicted

with it, areas of brain become smaller with cell death and the cavities left

become enlarged. The areas most affected are control memory, logical

thinking, and personality. Only 5-10% of the cases are inherited. 14 million

people with Alzheimer’s disease are predicted by 2050.

BPA is about 10,000-fold less potent than 17ß-estradiol, a potent estrogen

that is synthesized primarily in the ovary, but also in the placenta, testis

and possibly adrenal cortex. Because of the disparity, industry

representatives claim it causes no harm at the levels that the majority of

people are exposed to. However, a study in 2001 showed that even at such low

potency, when combined with other xenoestrogens (estrogens from outside the

body), they act together additively, effectively raising the body load of

estrogen to dangerous levels.[41] Another study showed that there is an

increased sensitivity to BPA during the perinatal period, which begins with

completion of the twentieth to twenty-eighth week of gestation and ends 7 to

28 days after birth.[42] Exposure to BPA increases risk of mammary

tumors.[43] To reiterate, there is no shortage of research published on the

negative health effects of BPA.

Avoiding Plastic

While it’s impossible to avoid all plastics, we must rid our diets and lives

of this toxic material as much as possible. There is a huge amount of data

confirming the migration of plastic monomers and additives in all steps of

food processing.[44] And in my opinion and that of many top research

scientists, it is only a matter of time and money spent on new studies

before the harm is found. Because of corporate political campaign financing,

meaningful regulations resulting from studies will take even longer to

become law. We must protect our families while the obvious results trickle

in.

I strongly advise individuals and governments to ban plastics wherever

possible by utilizing the precautionary principal. The Wingspread Statement

on the Precautionary Principle is the consensus statement of a conference in

1998. Simply put it states that if you have reasonable suspicion of harm

coming from (plastic in this case) then you must stop it from happening; the

burden of proof must be on industry, not consumers; alternatives must be

fully explored before using a new material or technology; and any decisions

regarding such activities must be " open, informed, and democratic " and " must

include affected parties. " [45]

Evidence of the negative health effects of plastics already exists in

sufficient quantity to halt the use of it in contact with food. More

importantly, I feel that the manufacture of plastic itself must be halted

for a multitude of reasons. Besides causing an endless number of human

deaths, disabilities, and diseases, plastic is clogging all habitats of the

world and destroying the ecosystem. There is now 6 times more plastic than

plankton floating around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Plankton is a

major food source for sea animals.[46] A large portion of it is preconsumer

plastic that has not been made into a product yet. Called nurdels, they look

very much like plankton in size and color. According to a paper by Arrigo et

al in Geophysical Research Letters in October 2003, plankton production has

been declining for the last 20 years with rising ocean surface temperatures.

Along with increasing plastic quantities, the ratio of plastic to plankton

is increasing, making it more of a target for hungry animals.

The researcher who found this, Captain Charles Moore, Director of the

Algalita Marine Research Foundation, told me that new data indicate that the

ratio of plastic to zooplankton is even higher in two so-called floating

plastic " Garbage Patches " that are each bigger than the State of Texas.[47],

[48]

Nurdles are incorporated into all strata of the oceans with no known method

of removal. DDE, a metabolite of DDT, and other dioxin-like chemicals

concentrate on the surface of the plastic nurdles at a rate up to a million

times that found in the ocean.[49] Captain Moore’s presentation includes

images of sea animals that have suffocated and starved as a result. Even

more startling is seeing plastic bits incorporated into the flesh of the sea

animals.

Conclusion

I spent about two years answering telephone inquiries at an environmental

organization in Berkeley. A great number of the callers asked what the

safest plastic to use in contact with food or water is. They also wanted to

know what the safest plastic is to microwave food in. My answer was that

plastic should never contact food. And that one should never microwave food

— it's probably as bad or worse than putting it in plastic because it

creates free radicals in the food that damage cells in your body. It also

heats the plastic, thus increasing the rate of migration into the food. That

answer wasn’t popular with either the caller or the organization, which

likes to point out positive alternatives. However, plastic is the

alternative! And glass, wood, metal, and ceramics are the real things.

Plastic is merely a foul imitation thereof. By using the least offensive

plastic, one only prolongs and increases the toxic load on the Earth and in

our bodies. If saving trees is your aim, stop using so much stuff. But in

the mean time, don’t further degrade the environment with more plastic.

As consumers, we always look for ways to maintain the status quo of our

modern lives. However, the only logic I can see in the regulation of food

contact plastics is profit at the expense of our health, the economy,

society, and environment. You needn’t be a polymer scientist to know that

plastic shouldn’t contact food. What is essential though is a firm standing

in reality and a good grip on logic. It also requires being free of ties to

the industry before that logic becomes evident.

First set aside your assumptions and look at the known long- and short-term

negative effects of plastic on health, economy, environment, and society, as

well as the long-term viability of the human race. Next contrast that with

what you find as benefits. I guarantee that the stack of chips will be far

larger in the negative pile.

If one were to listen only to nonprofits and the industry, it would be

natural to think that only the additives are toxic and migrate. But

everything about plastics is toxic — both the additives and the base

plastics. And both migrate in quantities that are problematic at extremely

low concentrations. Some chemicals are obviously more so than others. But it

is undeniable that they all migrate all the time into everything that they

touch.

Consider that:

Ubiquitous — plastics are everywhere. . . our bodies, the air, water, oceans

and so on

Toxic — plastics are toxic. Both additives and base plastics

World — almost everything we touch is made of or coated with plastics

People — we are all exposed during every every minute of every day

Unknown — almost nothing is known about individual chemicals that make up

plastics

Synergies — even less than nothing is known about the effects of

combinations of plastics and other things including ionizing radiation

Wishful thinking — the process by which plastics are considered safe by the

FDA, the industry, nonprofits and users

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