Fast-food wrappers and packaging that contain so-called forever chemicals are no longer being sold in the U.S.
Fast-food wrappers and packaging that contain so-called forever chemicals are no longer being sold in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday.
It’s the result of a voluntary effort with U.S. food manufacturers to phase out food contact packaging made with PFAS, the acronym for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which do not degrade and can harm human health.
Starting in 2020, the FDA obtained commitments from U.S. food manufacturers to phase out PFAS in wrappers, boxes and bags with coating to prevent grease, water and other liquids from soaking through.
Most wrappers feel like wax paper to me so I just assumed that was the case my whole life. Don't know why it didn't occur to me they'd be using plastic. People always look at me weird when I say we need to get rid of plastic liquid containers like "but what could we possibly use!? Plastic is the only water proof thing humans have ever known!". I'm hoping wax makes a comeback
Thats cool. Since these forever chemicals are already inside us and all throughout our environment, forever, I guess they don't need to add them to fast food anymore. 👍🏾
In this case, I see that line as indicating to the readers/public that the industry was cooperative in this move and didn't need to be coerced. It's a single line that is not only giving the reader more context but also a well deserved nod to the industry.
Also, regulation can and should follow, but that's going to happen at the speed of politics and government. Far better for everyone involved to get the changes done now and regulate later rather than make zero changes until and unless laws are passed.
...and you can't accomplish that without industry cooperation. But in this case the industry is cooperating, and progress was made quickly. And the industry, for all of its many flaws, deserves recognition for it.
I mean...BPA sure...but all plasticizers? You can't have plastics without plasticizers.
If you're saying you want to ban all plastics from the food and beverage industry, that's a different matter altogether, and a wildly impractical one at that.
Yes. It’s a bold statement, and regardless of practicality, it is what I believe.
I’m of the mind that all plastic is unsafe anywhere near the human food chain.
My reasoning is simple, and very folksy, but I trust it.
Humans are carbon-based. As is all life on earth. Plastic is derived from petroleum products. Petroleum is more or less essence of carbon-based life-forms.
Intrinsic to humans (as well as all life on earth), petroleum, and plastics, are chemical structures called cyclic compounds. That’s the carbon ring structure you see in glucose, gasoline, and polystyrene.
To modify the properties of plastic, the chemicals you add to it must be capable of interacting with that cyclic compound.
And therefore, they are also capable of interacting with the carbon ring structure that underpins all of our biology.
Sure, it’s possible to create plastics that only leech a little of these compounds, but the most useful properties of plastics are their flexibility. I don’t believe it’s possible to create a plastic material that is pliable without also being easily compromised at a molecular level - which is to say - easily leeching the plasticizers and other chemicals used to impart the desired properties.
And nothing nowhere should have PFAS, so its great we are gradually stopping wrapping our food in (yet finding things like outer clothes, shoes, etc w/o PFAS is still impossible).
I guess the closest thing to a point was that shit is already everywhere*, we can only stop using it & hope future generations do better.
*I'm absolutely not saying that if it's already everywhere we should add even more.