How much do you know about toxic glue?
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Beth Terry has been trying to live a plastic-free life for years now, and just when she gets used to her latest lifestyle adaptation—a hidden source of plastic waste or toxin she didn't know about—a new one pops up.
One of her most recent finds came from a study showing that chemicals from adhesive labels on food packaging can leach through plastic packaging and into the food inside.
Check out her full post to learn how she stumbled into this topic and what she plans to do from now on because of it.
In a nutshell, Beth explains, the researchers were studying whether "the chemicals from the adhesives could migrate through the packaging into the food." What they found:
Of the 11 compounds they studied, four migrated into the food. And of those four, the chemical 2,4,7,9-Tetramethyldec-5-yne-4,7-diol is highly toxic to humans.
She adds that the material most likely to allow chemicals to pass through to the food contents is polyethylene plastic—aka, the major component of soda, juice, and water bottles, plastic bags and several types of flexible plastic food wrapping, and some prepared or frozen food trays. (It's also supposed to be one of the "safer" plastics because it does not contain BPA.)
The industry response? The Telegraph reports a spokeswoman saying only, "Our own research has found that although several chemical substances are present in adhesives, the potential for them to migrate into food is very low."
That doesn't sound very convincing.
