Toxic Chemicals in Food Packaging: New Study Warns of Health Risks

According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, out of more than 15,000 chemicals known to come in contact with food, 1,222 pose serious health risks such as cancer and reproductive harm, while 87 percent lack enough accessible information to estimate their risks.

Most consumers decide if old food in the fridge is safe by checking a sell-by date, but no package label indicates whether hazardous substances are seeping into meals. A team led by the nonprofit Food Packaging Forum Foundation analyzed thousands of chemicals approved by regulators in the United States, China, Japan, and countries in Europe and South America.

According to study co-author Jane Muncke, managing director at the nonprofit Food Packaging Forum Foundation, the lack of publicly available information for independent scientists to assess food-contact chemicals remains the elephant in the room. Consumers trust that regulators allow chemicals in packaging because they have undergone safety testing, Muncke said, but that is not the case.

Independent chemical safety and regulation expert Maricel Maffini, who was not involved in the study, noted that the research team did a very good job highlighting how little is known about risks affecting everyone. Maffini stated that the study focused on a list industry and regulators regard as reliable, looking under the proverbial lamppost while vast amounts of information beyond that list remain missing.

Priority Chemicals and Health Risks

To build their priority list, researchers used data from governmental and regulatory agencies linking chemicals to human health hazards like cancer, reproductive harm, or ability to concentrate in the body. They ranked 1,222 chemicals into four tiers based on evidence of human exposure from food-contact materials.

Tier 1 includes 94 chemicals known to seep into food and detected in human samples such as blood and breast milk. According to the research, these substances include liver- and immune system-damaging PFAS forever chemicals used in grease-resistant food wrappers, the likely carcinogen styrene found in takeout packages and refrigerated dairy containers, hormone-disrupting phthalates used to make plastics flexible, and bisphenol A used in hard plastics and can linings.

Studies have found these chemicals leaching into a diverse array of food and beverages, including water, infant formula, orange juice, ice cream, yogurt and cream, oils, cake, and fatty foods. Tier 2 contains an additional 264 hazardous chemicals that leach into food but have not yet been detected in biomonitoring studies.

Baby Food Pouches and Plastic Chemicals

Regulatory Recommendations and Industry Response

Food Packaging Forum experts argue that regulators should move away from evaluating one chemical at a time. According to the research team, regulators should introduce a mixture allocation factor to account for combined effects, regulate chemicals in groups with similar structures, and expand toxicity screening to cover chronic diseases like diabetes and infertility.

Sara Lupolt, an expert on exposure assessment at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who did not participate in the study, described the paper as a practical and transparent roadmap for prioritizing food-contact chemicals, though she noted more research is required to determine specific food and chemical combinations.

Inside Climate News asked the American Chemistry Council and the Food Packaging Coalition whether their members would release hazard information and phase out hazardous chemicals, but neither responded. However, the Food Packaging Coalition maintains that packaging is designed to prevent component transfer and ensure safety for its intended use.