Is the plastic additive safe? Can plasticizers cause cancer?

The European Union and Russia have found that plastic toys imported from China contain poisonous polyvinyl chloride plasticizers: diisodecyl phthalate (DINP) and diethylhexyl phthalate (DOP).

Plasticizers have always been based on o-benzene products, but with the widespread use of plasticizer DOP in the food packaging and medical supplies industry, people are paying more attention to its toxicity. It has even been observed that when people lose blood stored in a PVC plastic bag, they will find the presence of DOP in the human body, especially in the lungs.

Although the international debate on whether DOP is carcinogenic is still controversial, but for the potential carcinogenic danger of DOP, countries around the world have begun to take corresponding measures to limit the possible use of DOP.

According to research published by the National Cancer Institute, the United States has stopped producing six phthalate plasticizers; the Swiss government has also decided to ban the use of DOP in children's toys; Germany also bans all related to human and health foods. DOP is used in plastic products; at the same time, in Japan, DOP is used as a plastic additive only in industrial plastic products.

At present, the research and development of non-toxic plasticizer products have been accelerated internationally, especially the research on plastic products with high environmental protection requirements and low toxic content. However, those DOP plasticizers that have been eliminated and banned abroad have a large market in China, and plasticizer manufacturers have not paid enough attention to the development and promotion of non-toxic new plasticizers. 80% of the plasticizers in the domestic market are plasticizers such as DOP and DBP (Dibutyl Phthalate), the key being because of their low price. Even including the national standard "food containers, additives for packaging materials to make Sichuan health standards" also listed DOP as one of the plasticizer varieties that can be used for food packaging.

Despite the loose national standards, China's foreign trade exports still face a severe external environment. In particular, many foreign countries have adopted the principle of increasing import quarantine standards and increasing project testing as the main means, using technology research and development to intangibly reduce the export volume of Chinese products and strengthen the protection of domestic industries. The trend is becoming more and more obvious.

Nowadays, Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries have generally used safe and environmentally friendly plasticizers such as citrate esters and epoxide esters to replace poisonous products. At the same time, they have also introduced food packaging, medical supplies, children's toys, etc. Standards and regulations for the addition of DOA and DOP are prohibited in all products that come into contact with the human body. However, in China's national food hygiene standards, there are still regulations that can use DOA and DOP. Although these different types of plasticizers have not been determined to be carcinogenic, because China's food hygiene standards are quite lagging behind, it will cause a series of domestic plastic products to be blocked, and foreign products containing toxic plasticizers will flow into China. The problem, it can be seen that it is extremely urgent to solve the problem of the lag of the standard of plastic additives in China.