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FDA, Industry Actions End Sales of PFAS Used in Food Packaging
- elil17 2y agoIt sounds like they got a commitment to end it. Am I understanding that right? When will I be able to be confident that my food packaging no longer has any PFAS?
- freitzkriesler2 2y agoReading it, it sounds like now but existing stock will need to move through the supply chain first so we're not out of the woods yet. Now we need to look at the plastic layer thats in canned foods and sodas. A small win against the otherwise massive mess we have with xenoestrogenic chemicals turning the friggin frogs gay. /S
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoMaybe not turning the frogs gay, but possibly messing with our metabolism and contributing to the epidemic of obesity.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[dead]
- londons_explore 2y agoI'd like to see a 'contact layer' be sprayed on the inside of all food containers. That contact layer would be one of a fairly small list of very well understood materials. And we'd run multi-year animal studies with tens of thousands of animals to demonstrate safety of those materials. (Unlike current studies which might just be 10 mice for 3 weeks)
- hammock 2y agoWe have one. Unfortunately, it's plastic (usually PET - see coffee cups or any kind of coated paper product) Please don't spray anything more on my food.
- _heimdall 2y agoI'd like to see people eating food grown by themselves and local farmers that they can actually meet and talk to. Neither of our hopes seem likely to happen unfortunately. The sheer cost and time it would take to actually show with a high level of certainty that a chemical liner layer is safe won't work for the commercial food industry. It's much easier to claim some new process or packaging is totally safe, send that to regulators who largely outsource safety testing to the industry itself, and move on selling what is potentially toxic.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." All magic comes with a price, and the inside of Mylar packaging is absolutely magic. That is, it seems like whenever we try to science our way out of some food mistake, we end up making it worse. Don't get me wrong, science has kept a lot of people from starving (although heavy nitrogen fertilizer use and monocultures are a challenge for the environment), but after a certain point, we started losing gains in health because we started optimizing for profit. Now, we put pictures of nature on ultraprocessed food and convince people it's good for them, when all they really need is to eat an apple, which, unfortunately, has no marketing department. Humans are smart, but there is probably no magic bullet. The safest food packaging is the skin on an orange.
- throwway120385 2y ago> all they really need is to eat an apple, which, unfortunately, has no marketing department. I think you'll find that apples do have a marketing department: https://waapple.org/ https://waapple.org/.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
- pfdietz 2y agoI remember a few years ago when a local "green" grocery store swapped out polypropylene hot food bar containers for cardboard compostable containers. I looked up the manufacturer of these "compostable" containers and discovered they keep oils out of the cardboard with a PFA coating. PFA-laden compost, just what any gardener would want. /s
- ch4s3 2y agoYeah any wood pulp based food container is going to have coatings to block oils. and water. You're probably better off with plastic containers.
- pfdietz 2y agoAn alternative might be silicone coatings. Parchment paper used in cooking uses this. I worry about the impact of that on food cooked against the paper. Silicones can be biodegradable though -- one of the problems with exploiting methane-rich gas from decomposition in landfills is that it includes silicon-containing volatile compounds from decomposition of silicones. If you burn this in a combustion turbine the combustors and turbine blades get coated with glass.
- zug_zug 2y agoIs wax paper not a viable substitute?
- newshackr 2y agoI don't understand how they can get a voluntary commitment to end the practice given the number of food producers. How can all have signed off?
- analog31 2y agoMy hope -- and maybe I'm being too optimistic -- is that PFAS can be controlled at the source. There must be fewer PFAS producers than food producers, and the food producers don't make their own raw materials or necessarily their own packaging.
- ineedaj0b 2y agothreat, and believe it or not the food producers do ‘care’. Reminiscent of talking with dairy farmers, who all seemed extremely worried of hormones and antibiotics in cow milk and really wanted to fix it. Both political leanings were not keen on what might coming out from cows and wanted the best for consumers
- davidmurdoch 2y agoI like your optimism. But I think you might be living in a different world than the rest is us.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- karaterobot 2y agoThey just denied a petition to do the same thing last year. Actually, the petition sounds more limited in scope, if anything. I'm sure there's some nuance here, but offhand it seems odd. https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-responds-petition-phthalates-food-packaging-and-food-contact-applications https://www.fda.gov/food/cfsan-constituent-updates/fda-respo...
- rkagerer 2y agoIf I understand the announcement correctly, it just applies to certain types of PFAS intended as grease-proofing agents. Other types of PFAS have been approved for food use by the FDA, and aren't being eliminated. It's a voluntary compliance on the part of manufacturers, spurred by FDA efforts. ...a voluntary commitment by manufacturers to not sell food contact substances containing certain PFAS intended for use as grease-proofing agents in the U.S. It makes me wonder how they were getting away with using materials that weren't approved as food-grade in the first place. And also whether there's been significant development of substitute materials over the last few years and how much of a factor that was, outside of any implied FDA threats.
- davidmurdoch 2y agoIf you like "based on true events" movies give Dark Waters a watch. It's horrifying what corporations are allowed to get away with here in the US.
- oopsallmagic 2y ago[flagged]
- elthran 2y agonow you just hire them to seize unreleased trading cards https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/trading-card-game/news/magic-the-gathering-aftermath-youtube-prompts-pinkerton-investigation https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/trading-card-game/new...
- hammock 2y agoMore horrifying watch the actual true documentary - The Devil We Know (2018)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Workaccount2 2y agoThe fundamental problem is that people want this stuff to be fixed, but virtually no one wants to sacrifice an inch to do it. So the only way things can really change is if a functionally equivalent or better replacement comes along. The Montreal Protocol worked so well because it told companies/countries to phase out what was already an old refrigerant and instead use a more modern and efficient r134a. If someone invents something functionally identical to PFAS at a lower cost and without all the toxicity, you'll have a global protocal signed in a month with everyone eager greenwash their PR with how they stopped using PFAS. And consumers will be happy because they don't have to sacrifice an inch of quality of life.