A recent study has revealed that plastics—ranging from food packaging and toys to medical devices—contain more than 16,000 chemicals, surpassing previous estimates by 3,000. This discovery raises significant concerns regarding pollution and consumer safety.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) had earlier identified approximately 13,000 chemicals in plastics. However, the new research conducted by a team of European scientists, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, has expanded this number, with a quarter of these chemicals deemed hazardous to human health and the environment.
This report comes at a critical time as government negotiators work on establishing the world's first treaty to combat the escalating plastic pollution crisis, with an estimated 400 million tonnes of plastic waste being produced annually.
\"To robustly solve plastic pollution, you actually have to look at the full life cycle of plastics and you have to address the chemicals issue,\" said Jane Muncke, managing director of the Swiss nonprofit Food Packaging Forum and co-author of the report.
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Study finds plastics contain more chemicals than previous estimates
cgtn.com
