It’s not just food: The plastic packaging your food comes in may carry cancer-linked chemicals, and most go untested

A recent study has revealed that food packaging chemicals may pose cancer-linked health risks to consumers, despite being overlooked in regulatory efforts. Out of over 15,000 food contact chemicals (FCCs), 1,222 or 8% were identified as potentially hazardous, according to the study published in Environmental Science & Technology.

The researchers, from the nonprofit Food Packaging Forum Foundation, discovered that many of these chemicals were found to migrate into foodstuffs and had negative health impacts such as being carcinogenic, mutagenic, or endocrine-disrupting. However, a concerning issue arose when the researchers found that 13,211 out of 15,159 known food-contact chemicals lacked harmonized hazard data, meaning it was unclear if these chemicals were hazardous based on the available data.

The researchers refer to this issue as "regrettable substitution," where a known hazardous substance is replaced with a structurally similar chemical that has not been adequately tested. This has been observed with chemicals like bisphenol A (BPA) and its replacement, bisphenol S (BPS), both of which are commonly found in plastics.

Despite the lack of sufficient information to determine the safety of these chemicals, the study emphasizes the importance of addressing this issue through global testing and policy efforts to prevent hazardous substances from entering the food supply chain.