Rob de Hard
Sergeant
I got a circular email about this from someone the other day and it struck a chord.
The sheer number of times I've had hot food coming from styrene, plastic containers etc.
It always struck me as kinda dumb: plastic is full of dioxins and other carcenogens. Which is why you don't inhale plastic fumes when its burning .. or incinerate plastic .. which is still done everywhere btw! The sheer inefficieny of waste management means quantities of plastic and other oil/synthetic packaging and rubbish finds its way into the incinerators.
Dioxins are well documented but are just ONE of the carcenogenic components in plastic.
So yeah, for anyone who might have never really given this any thought: it seems a good thing to emphasise.
Don't use plastic wrap/cellophane/cling film to cover glass containers in the microwave? Another common practice .. micro waves are beamed through the plastic, agitating the molecules, heating
it up, and releasing all manner of nasty stuff into your food through the condensation that collects on the underside.
Basically anything that contains plastic has no business coming into contact with food! Hot food put into tupperware, hot drinks served into plastic cups off the top of flasks, styrene food trays for
takeout food etc etc etc etc. The list is endless. Even plastic forks!
There's a big movement about how bottled water is also a cancer risk in this regard, but I haven't done any research into what empirical evidence there is on the subject: but it does seem logical. Direct sunlight, hot cars etc will agitate the plastic and could cause transfer or seepage into the fluids. This isn't just mineral water obviously: coke, coffee etc. Anything in a plastic bottle or container.
How hot is hot enough to cause issues? No idea. Microwaves obviously, but is boiling water or heated food hot enoigh? If the bottled water thing has any scientific basis, then yeah tbh, you are risking your health.
You can take it as far as you like, you really aren't being hysterical. Whether or not the levels are sufficient to cause any real increase in cancer risk is debtable, but as I said, the dangers of dioxins have been known for a long time now. Birth defects, mutations, chronic ilnesses, cancer etc.
The sheer number of times I've had hot food coming from styrene, plastic containers etc.
It always struck me as kinda dumb: plastic is full of dioxins and other carcenogens. Which is why you don't inhale plastic fumes when its burning .. or incinerate plastic .. which is still done everywhere btw! The sheer inefficieny of waste management means quantities of plastic and other oil/synthetic packaging and rubbish finds its way into the incinerators.
Dioxins are well documented but are just ONE of the carcenogenic components in plastic.
So yeah, for anyone who might have never really given this any thought: it seems a good thing to emphasise.
Don't use plastic wrap/cellophane/cling film to cover glass containers in the microwave? Another common practice .. micro waves are beamed through the plastic, agitating the molecules, heating
it up, and releasing all manner of nasty stuff into your food through the condensation that collects on the underside.
Basically anything that contains plastic has no business coming into contact with food! Hot food put into tupperware, hot drinks served into plastic cups off the top of flasks, styrene food trays for
takeout food etc etc etc etc. The list is endless. Even plastic forks!
There's a big movement about how bottled water is also a cancer risk in this regard, but I haven't done any research into what empirical evidence there is on the subject: but it does seem logical. Direct sunlight, hot cars etc will agitate the plastic and could cause transfer or seepage into the fluids. This isn't just mineral water obviously: coke, coffee etc. Anything in a plastic bottle or container.
How hot is hot enough to cause issues? No idea. Microwaves obviously, but is boiling water or heated food hot enoigh? If the bottled water thing has any scientific basis, then yeah tbh, you are risking your health.
You can take it as far as you like, you really aren't being hysterical. Whether or not the levels are sufficient to cause any real increase in cancer risk is debtable, but as I said, the dangers of dioxins have been known for a long time now. Birth defects, mutations, chronic ilnesses, cancer etc.
