Plastics seem to be there in every activity of our lives today. They also occupy a significant part of our kitchens and this fact has garnered a lot of attention lately.
What caused this sudden eruption of discontent within scientists and aware citizens? Themedguru discovers, what brings plastics under the sphere of health safety concerns...
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.”
How is Plastic Made?
In the process of obtaining plastic, scores of monomers are combined to make polymers in the presence of great heat and pressure. Every plastic manufacturer uses a different formula to obtain plastic suitable for the product that he is manufacturing.
There are numerous additives used in the process. Heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, and lead are a few to name. These are used without any approval or knowledge of the concerned authorities.
Some byproducts obtained during the process are used in the production of pesticides besides other industries. The raw materials used for manufacturing plastics and the byproducts obtained thereon should be enough to give an insight into plastic’s potential of causing harm to humans.
The Ill Effects of Plastic Use
The plastic industry has since ages, harped upon the fact that plastic is totally non toxic and does not cause any harm to the human system. The truth however, is quite different from what has been projected so far.
Both the FDA and the plastic industry are fully aware that the polymerization process is never 100 percent perfect. There are always some toxins available even in final plastic products for migration into the various things they come in contact with such as your food, air, water, skin etc. (Migration refers to the movement of free toxins from plastic into the substances they come in contact with).
When is Plastic Harmful
Any harmful substance has three common characteristics
• It is made of something harmful
• The harmful substance is capable of reaching your body
• The concentration of the harmful substance is enough to cause harm
Polycarbonate, a type of plastic, meets at least two of these criteria. It is made up of a component called Bisphenol-A (BPA), capable of causing sufficient damage to developing humans as well as animals. Further, it is now known that BPA can migrate from the plastic to reach our body through the food and beverages.
The Culprit - Bisphenol-A
Bisphenol-A (BPA) is a monomer used in the synthesis of PC plastics. The list of products containing BPA is long. Syringes, containers, lenses, baby bottles and dental products are a few to name.
The chemical bonds that hold the BPA molecules together in a polycarbonate are capable of disintegrating with time when exposed to heat or acidic or basic substances. The freewheeling molecules of BPA then get attached to food or beverages to find its way into your body. It is due to this very characteristic that BPA is capable of causing tremendous harm to humans.
BPA’s Harm
Once the BPA molecules find their way into the body, camouflaged as a sex hormone, they act as endocrine disruptors. The body, which functions on precise hormone signaling, thus suffers from lack of proper signals at the right time. For example, the signals such as that required to grow hair, breasts and for overall growth might be disrupted causing irreparable harm.
The Big Question
The million dollar question that still remains unanswered is – whether the concentration in which BPA enters our body is enough to cause harm to humans? In a series of experiments carried out on rodents, it was discovered that BPA even in small amounts was capable of causing sufficient damage to their internal structure. But when it comes to humans, the Canadian authorities thought it best to put a ban on polycarbonate baby bottles as they did cause some harm.
However, in United States, the FDA maintains that BPA is safe for humans of all sizes and ages because the BPA that gets into us is more three times lesser than the level the government deems safe, which is 0.05 mg per kilogram body weight per day.
We hence do not know for sure what the reality holds, but one thing is definite – “It is better to be safe than sorry”. So a better idea will be to avoid this miscreant called plastic as far as you possibly can.
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