Paging Dr. Frischer: Black plastic

Are your black plastic kitchen tools, toys, and to-go packages safe? An alarming recent study concluded that they are toxic, and as a result, my kids tossed their kitchen utensils. A week later, the environmental advocacy group Toxic-Free Future announced that their initial results were incorrect.

I was slow on the uptake and did not throw mine away. Evidently, I saved some money. Sometimes we panic before having all of the facts.

Toxic flame retardants actually can get into black plastic kitchenware and other items because the black plastic used to make them sometimes includes recycled electronic products. (One example is recycled housings from televisions and electronic items, which for safety are required to contain flame retardants.)

This issue is not straightforward, as safety risks from chemicals need to be balanced with the benefits of recycling. This particular recent study stated that toxic brominated flame retardants and organophosphate flame retardants might be present at dangerous levels in some products containing black recycled plastic. However, the study incorporated a math error, resulting in a miscalculation of how much of the potentially toxic flame retardants a person could safely ingest. That “safe” amount is actually set at 420,000 nanograms per day, not the 42,000 nanograms used by the researchers. This means that it is considered safe to ingest 10 times more than they presumed.

The bottom line here is that high rates of exposure to some flame retardants is indeed associated with a greater risk of cancer. This is a very real concern, but the exposure from these black plastic items does not come close to levels considered to be dangerous, and there appears to be no health risk from miniscule amounts of these chemicals. Would I prefer to live in a world where I (and my children and grandchildren) ingest zero nanograms of flame retardants? I certainly would, but I am also quite fond of fire safety…and plastic.

Fortunately, science doesn’t work in a vacuum, and typically there are multiple studies backing up a scientific statement. In this case, a significant conclusion was based on a single study, which in fact was flawed. Keep your black plastic utensils for now.