Packaging is an integral part of many of the foods we buy. Think, for example, of a pizza box, the foil around a cucumber or a milk carton.
Researchers from University College London have investigated the amount of chemicals in packaging and which of them can be harmful.
The research showed that it contains 2881 so-called Food Contact Chemicals (FCC): chemicals that can end up on our food and drinks from plastic, paper, cardboard, metal, glass and ceramics.
66 percent banned substances
Of those 2,881 chemicals, 1,035 are allowed in our food – so two-thirds of the chemicals found are not.
Some of them, such as fluorides, are banned in food in the Netherlands (and in many other countries).
Governments are working on laws to ban the other substances or set limit values for them. Bisphenol A, for example, is banned in the EU in, among other things, feeding bottles for children under three.
The researchers have also created a database, FCCmigex, in which they will systematically map the distribution of FCCs.