How much do you know about "Bisphenol A", a toxic plastic takeout lunch box?

The working schedule of 996 makes it difficult for livestock to find time to cook. The evening peak makes people shy away from going out to eat. Compared with those time-consuming and labor-intensive activities, people prefer to use their fingers to send food to their homes.

According to statistics, from 2015 to 2019, the penetration rate of China's takeout industry increased by about 10 percentage points [1], and takeout has become a part of contemporary life.

With the rise of the takeout industry, more and more people focus on the harm to the environment caused by takeout. "Degradable lunch box", "No tableware environmental protection list" and other signs often appear in takeout software.

In contrast, when ordering takeout, takeout packaging materials are not available for consumers to choose as variables, and few people have noticed how the packaging box will affect human health.

In fact, all kinds of organic additives in takeout packages are easy to migrate to food and then enter people's bodies. In the long run, they will become invisible "killers" that can induce many diseases. Bisphenol A is one of the most common additives.

What is bisphenol A

Bisphenol A is an organic chemical raw material, which is widely used in drinking water bottles, plastic toys and food packaging. It is fat soluble and easily soluble in lipids and alcohols. Therefore, when it is used as a packaging box additive, bisphenol A may migrate to food and then easily to human body.

At the same time, because it is not easy to be decomposed by the digestive system, it will accumulate in the body after ingestion, causing potential safety hazards over time.

What are the hazards of bisphenol A

Bisphenol A is easy to affect sensitive people such as newborns, children and pregnant women. Previous studies have shown that bisphenol A can affect embryonic growth and brain development [2], and may also lead to precocious puberty in children [3]. At the same time, as an endocrine interferon, bisphenol A may affect the human reproductive system.

Therefore, since 2011, China has explicitly prohibited the use of bisphenol A in infant food packaging containers (Announcement of the Ministry of Health and other six departments on the Prohibition of Bisphenol A for Infant Bottles (No. 15 in 2011)), and limited the migration of bisphenol A in other packaging containers (GB 9685-2016 Standard for the Use of Additives for Food Contact Materials and Products).

Migration of bisphenol A in takeout plastic lunch boxes

The most common plastic packaging boxes on the market are polypropylene plastic (No. 5 plastic, PP), polystyrene plastic (No. 6 plastic, PS) and polystyrene foam plastic (No. 6 plastic, PS). Due to the difference of ingredients, the migration amount of bisphenol A in different kinds of plastic lunch boxes is different in different foods.

It is worth mentioning that although GB/T 16288-2008 Marking of Plastic Products stipulates that packaging boxes should be marked for their composition and proportion, many foam plastic packaging boxes on the market do not comply with this provision.

There may be other ingredients in the packaging box that will release bisphenol A in the process of containing food, further increasing the human intake and forming a health hazard.