The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [67]
But the use of polystyrene foam packaging is not just an environmental concern; it’s a major public health concern. Polystyrene foam can leach the chemical styrene, a known carcinogen, into the food it touches, and with enough exposure it can cause damage to the human reproductive system. Researchers estimate that a polystyrene foam cup can leach up to 0.025 percent of styrene into the beverage it is holding in a single use, and the amount that it leaches increases when the food or beverage in question is hot or high in fat. It’s debatable whether eating or drinking out of polystyrene foam containers can add up to enough styrene exposure to cause significant damage. But the long-term effects of styrene exposure, observed mainly through workers exposed to it in plants, have been undesirable.
The toxicity of polystyrene foam underscores a much bigger, developing problem in today’s world—of untested and potentially hazardous chemicals lurking in nearly every manufactured product we touch. There has been a lot of hubbub over the dangers of the common plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and phthalates, the family of chemicals often used to soften it. PVC may be used to make everything from plastic cling wrap to refrigerators, disposable drinking cups to reusable water bottles. But recently, the issue gained attention when it was discovered in baby toys such as teething rings. Like polystyrene foam, the amount of toxic chemicals these plastics can leach increases with heat. Everyday inks and dyes are under scrutiny as well: In one Italian study, researchers discovered that inks containing toxic chemicals were being printed on common cardboard pizza boxes, and they concluded that with the high heat levels inside the boxes, these chemicals could migrate into the food, although it is unclear what, if any, effect this could have on humans.
One of the most frustrating parts of this problem might just be that as consumers, we simply don’t know what chemicals are in the products we’re using. Unless we take it upon ourselves to do some investigative research and send plastic toys or food containers to a lab for inspection, there’s no way to discern between a plastic fork laden with PVC and one that’s not. There are sixty thousand chemical compounds on the market that have never been tested for safety that could be making it into our everyday products, according to Mark Schapiro in his book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power. In contrast, ceramics, glass, and many types of metals have been used since the beginning of time to serve food. So with that in mind, I much prefer to eat my soup out of some type of ceramic dish when I can.
Leaving aside the unwanted sauce packets, extra paper menu, and napkins from my weigh-in for the moment, we get to the aluminum soda can. The government has tried to take measures to encourage aluminum recycling, offering a five-cent deposit in the states of New York, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Hawaii, Iowa, and Connecticut (as my Chinese takeout can of Diet Pepsi had clearly engraved on its top). But collecting cans for their deposit value may soon be a thing of the past. According to the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), aluminum recycling rose significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, due in large part to the mandatory deposit legislature in nine states. Since 1992, however, when recycling reached a peak of 68 percent, the rate has been dropping steadily. Today, 50 percent