Health
Controversy among scientists over error in study: The health risk of black kitchen utensils is reviewed
If you threw out your black plastic kitchen utensils after a study saying they may be poisoning you went viral, you may not want to read this.

Consciousness about the dangers that toxins that may be present in everyday items in our households has been increasing in recent years. Especially, those that are made of plastics which are ever present in today’s society.
So, it wouldn’t be a surprise if after reading a study that went viral this past fall warning that black plastic kitchen utensils could contain high levels of toxic additives like hazardous flame retardants you may have thrown them all out. If so, Opps? Maybe not…
On the one hand, the authors made a major mathematical miscalculation in the amounts of the toxic additives present. However, the “calculation error does not affect the overall conclusion of the paper,” the authors said in the correction. So just how dangerous are your black kitchen utensils?
Health risk of black kitchen utensils
According to the original publication of the research, flame retardants were found in 85% of the household items examined like kitchen utensils, takeaway containers and toys. The majority of those were made from a chemical called decabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-209) that cannot easily break down in the environment. It has also been linked to potential human health risks.
The amount of exposure risk per day from this chemical was found to be nearly the safe total daily dose limit set by the EPA. The authors have admitted in their correction that levels of BDE-209 stated were about 10 times higher than they actually are. However, while the exposure risk may be a tenth of what was originally reported, it does not change their overall argument that “more regulation is needed to end the use of hazardous additives in products and ensure that replacements are made with safer materials and chemicals,” Megan Liu told the ABC.
How are toxic additives like hazardous flame retardants getting into kitchen utensils?
Plastics have a number of properties that have made them a material of choice over competing materials and omnipresent in the modern world. However, their durability and long lifespan means that they can exist in the environment without breaking down creating a pollution problem. Fortunately, they can be recycled, although only about 9% of plastic globally are recycled.
And when plastics are recycled, the mixture of different colored ones tends to result in an unappealing sludge color. So, manufacturers typically add black dye to give the recycled material a uniform and more desirable appearance.
The problem is that black pigment makes plastics with different chemicals present basically invisible to optical sensors at recycling facilities meant to sort them. As well it has created a demand for black plastic whose recycling stream has been contaminated with improperly disposed of e-waste plastics, which are treated with flame retardants to prevent electrical fires.
So, should you feel bad if you already threw out your plastic kitchenware?
While disposing of objects before they have outlived their usefulness is wasteful, cooking with plastics is not recommended. “We know that heat and plastics don’t go well together,” Jaime Ross, PhD, assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Rhode Island told Health.
“Even if there were zero flame retardants, I still wouldn’t use plastics to cook with because the heat can cause the plastics to degrade and allow a vector for the microplastics and nanoplastics to be consumed,” she explained.
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