Editors of the environmental chemistry journal Chemosphere have posted an eye-catching correction to a study reporting toxic flame retardants from electronics wind up in some household products made of black plastic, including kitchen utensils. The study sparked a flurry of media reports a few weeks ago that urgently implored people to ditch their kitchen spatulas and spoons. Wirecutter even offered a buying guide for what to replace them with.
The correction, posted Sunday, will likely take some heat off the beleaguered utensils. The authors made a math error that put the estimated risk from kitchen utensils off by an order of magnitude.
While being off by an order of magnitude seems like a significant error, the authors don’t seem to think it changes anything. … Ars has reached out to the lead author, Megan Liu, but has not received a response. Liu works for the environmental health advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, which led the study.
So the likely level of cancer-causing chemicals we’d ingest is roughly 10% of the EPA limit… https://skepchick.org/2024/12/why-did-we-throw-away-our-black-plastic-utensils/.
I’d still rather use a spatula that fed me 0% cancer.
Some people are concerned about this and then go out and smoke, vape, or drink alcohol.
BDE-209, aka decabromodiphenyl ether or deca-BDE, was a dominant component of TV and computer housings before it was banned by the European Union in 2006 and some US states in 2007. China only began restricting BDE-209 in 2023. The flame retardant is linked to carcinogenicity, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, and reproductive harm.
So BDE-209 can cause reproductive harm; might exposure to it be one partial cause of the dropping global fertility rates?
Plastic is everywhere and in everything. We are beyond fucked.
