Most Plastic Products Release Estrogenic Chemicals: A Potential Health Problem That Can Be Solved

Abstract

Background: Chemicals having estrogenic activity (EA) reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (picomolar to nanomolar) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.Objectives: We sought to determine whether commercially available plastic resins and products, including baby bottles and other products advertised as bisphenol A (BPA) free, release chemicals having EA.Methods: We used a roboticized MCF-7 cell proliferation assay, which is very sensitive, accurate, and repeatable, to quantify the EA of chemicals leached into saline or ethanol extracts of many types of commercially available plastic materials, some exposed to common-use stresses (microwaving, ultraviolet radiation, and/or autoclaving).Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled—independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source—leached chemicals having reliably detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than did BPA-containing products.Conclusions: Many plastic products are mischaracterized as being EA free if extracted with only one solvent and not exposed to common-use stresses. However, we can identify existing compounds, or have developed, monomers, additives, or processing agents that have no detectable EA and have similar costs. Hence, our data suggest that EA-free plastic products exposed to common-use stresses and extracted by saline and ethanol solvents could be cost-effectively made on a commercial scale and thereby eliminate a potential health risk posed by most currently available plastic products that leach chemicals having EA into food products.

Toxicology: The plastics puzzle

“…Eastman says that the results of testing, analysed by Thomas Osimitz of Science Strategies, a consulting firm in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his colleagues, verified that Tritan's monomers do not bind to oestrogen or androgen receptors 6 . In 2011, George Bittner, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas at Austin and the chief executive of Austin-based chemical-testing company CertiChem, reported that 92% of 102 commercially available plastic products leached chemicals with oestrogenic activity 7 . This included plastics advertised as BPA-free.…”

Microplastic Pollution in Inland Waters Focusing on Asia

“…Inappropriate disposal of wasted plastics has caused serious environmental problems. The presence of plastic debris in the environment not only affects the aesthetical and recreational values of ecosystems but may also present a persistent pollution problem that will continue to accumulate into future generations [2][3][4]. Once entering the environment, plastics are subject to physical, chemical, and biological weathering processes, which act to slowly break large pieces of plastic into smaller fragments.…”

Study of the possible migration risks of food contact materials for children under 3 years

“…While the migration phenomenon in plastics has already been studied extensively Yang et al 2011;Li et al 2013;Castillo et al 2013;Kirchnawy et al 2014;Maiolini et al 2014), the present study complements previous findings by using a broader scope for the identification of chemicals originating from plastics. Therefore, the principal aim of this study was to detect migrants from the alternative polymer materials currently used for baby bottles.…”