Lisa Zimmerman is a Ph.D researcher in the Department Aquatic Ecotoxicology at Goethe University Frankfurt and part of the PlastX Research Group.
She conducted a study called Benchmarking the in Vitro Toxicity and Chemical Composition of Plastic Consumer Products. Lisa and her team took 34 products from German supermarkets like food containers, a water bottle, and a shampoo bottle, and cut them into pieces, then used an organic solvent to determine the toxic chemicals in the plastic packaging.
Lisa discussed the findings of her study, how it was conducted, and provided us some insight into what we can do to avoid harmful substances that may be in contact with our food. We discuss bioplastics, and how they might not be as healthy as we think, and I got to ask Lisa if it’s true that plastic can act as a sponge by absorbing toxins.
The Study: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b02293
Plastx Group: http://www.plastx.org/https://www.facebook.com/PlastX-1735826773399950/?fref=nf
TRANSCRIPT
Laura (31s): Hello everyone. And welcome to the zero waste countdown podcast and radio show. Today we’re speaking with Lisa Zimmerman. She is a PhD researcher in the aquatic eco toxicology department at G oethe University in Frankfurt and part of the plastics research group at the Institute for social ecological research. She led a study called benchmarking the in vitro toxicity and chemical composition of plastic consumer products. So we’re going to learn basically what’s in plastic, if we should be worried about it, that sort of thing. Laura (1m 5s): So, Lisa, thank you so much. Welcome to the show.
Lisa (1m 6s): Yeah, thanks for the invitation it’s great to be here.
Laura (1m 9s): It seems like you’re doing some very important work because a lot of us don’t really know what’s in plastic or if it’s a problem or if we should be worried or not. So can you tell us, like what kind of harmful chemicals does plastic typically contain in their sometimes complex mixtures?
Lisa (1m 41s): First of all, in the plastic production, a lot of different chemicals are used in order to receive the best properties of the respective product or material. These are on one hand, intentionally added chemicals, like for example, editors, these may include flame retardants or plasticizers or colorants or antimicrobials. And then on the other side, the monomers in there that did not polymerize.
Lisa (2m 14s): And then furthermore, we also have solvents, lubricants or adhesives in there. And besides these intentionally added chemicals, they are also some reaction products or side products, which, which originate in the compounding or impurities that get into the plastic during the protection. And those are not intentionally added. So you see that as a lot of different chemicals in there on one hand there are those which are intentionally added, And then there are some which are like byproducts of the processing.
Laura (2m 52s): So the plastic maker might not even know what’s in the plastic themselves. It seems right. If there are unintentional ingredients.
Lisa (2m 58s): Yeah, that’s true. So they usually should know what they intentionally put in there. But then yeah, as he said, there are some reaction products or some impurities, even the producer might not know
Laura (3m 7s): How do chemicals release from plastic?
Lisa (3m 11s): So maybe it tells you a bit about the ground structure of a plastic product. So on one hand you have the polymath backbone, which is for example, the polyethylene or the polypropylene, and that’s like the ground structure. And then you have all the chemicals, which we were talking about before, which are added . And these chemicals, they are not covalently bound to the polymer backbone. And that means that they can leach or migrate into the content of the packaging or into the surrounding media
Laura (3m 46s): If they’re not bonded. So what was the aim of your, your study?
LIsa (3m 53s): So, what we all know is that plastics contain chemicals that are harmful to human health. Like for example, BPA or phthalates, that’s some chemicals which gather wide and public attention, but then plastic can contain many more chemicals. And most of them, they are not, they are unknown and we hardly know anything about the health impacts and this is why we wanted to investigate the overall toxicity present in plastic products.
Lisa (4m 25s): So of these chemical mixtures, which are in these products and for this aim, we included a wide range of products and polymer types, and also wanted to see if some plastic types or materials are better than others. So to say, if, for example, polyethylene is always more safe than for example, polyvinyl chloride with regards to the chemicals they include.
Laura (4m 53s): Yeah. I’ve read about teabags for one thing that, that, you know, there’s been studies and they’re trying to say it doesn’t leach to that much. And then in our CBC I’ve read articles that it teabags really leach a lot of plastic into the hot water. Cause of course the stabilizing bonds, so boiling, like why does boiling release these things so much? Like, does it release it a lot more than say if you just put oily foods in a plastic container?
Lisa (5m 22s): Hmm. So I think I’ll answer you first question. So a higher temperature like enhances the diffusion or the migration of the chemicals out of the product. So it goes a lot faster. So you should also, for example, prevent to heat your food, which is in a plastic container and a microwave, because that will also enhance the release of chemicals. And then with, regarding to like the fatty ingredients or the fatty content does really depends on, on the chemicals themselves.
Lisa (6m 1s): So for example, if the chemical is hydrophobic, which means that it dissolves easy in fatty components, then a fatty surrounding with also enhance the migration of these chemicals. But then there might be other chemicals which are better dissolved in water and then they might not transfer so easily in fatty surrounding.
Laura (6m 31s): Okay. So it depends on what it is. How, how did you analyze your research questions? Like what, what did you do in this study?
Lisa (6m 40s): We selected a wide range of plastic products and in total it were 34 products and which we regularly can buy on the market. In this case, it was an in German supermarkets. And then we took this product, like for example, it was a shampoo bottle or a food container or a water bottle, like mostly items with food contact, but also some items without food contact.
Lisa (7m 12s): And we cut these products and the pieces, and then we extracted them using an organic solvent. And then we, after we contained or we gained these extracts, we used a combination of cell based experiments to determine the toxic effects of these chemicals, chemical mixtures, we extracted out of the plastic product. So to clarify that a bit, so we tried to get all the chemicals, which are used in a product out of it, so that we have the whole chemical mixture, which we call the extractant.
Lisa (7m 51s): Then beside these solvent experiments, we also did chemical analysis to determine the amount, the origin, the function and the toxicity of the chemicals in the mixture. And we also tried to include unexpected chemicals.
Laura (8m 17s): Do you think there are chemicals that kind of got through that you wouldn’t catch? Like when you’re testing for, let’s say you’re testing for a flame retardant. There’s probably a certain process for that. So there are processes for like all the chemicals? Lisa (8m 32s): So there might be that we did not catch some chemicals because we used one kind of solvent to, to get all the chemicals out of the plastic product. But it might be that some chemicals , they are not released in that solvent. Like for, like we said before, with the, with the fatty content or something that they had, they don’t, release into that solvent. So it might be that there are some chemicals in the products we did not consider in the end.
Laura (9m 8s): Yeah. It seems like very complicated. It seems it would be easier if the company’s just told us what the chemicals were they’re using instead of the case. Cause I can’t imagine, like I couldn’t do an experiment like this that’s for sure. I would not know what I was doing!
Lisa (9m 24s): I mean, that was the interesting part that we had these mixtures and we didn’t know what, what is in there because I also try it out from the producers to find out what is, what is the composition, but that was actually not possible. And I said, okay, now I have this complex mixture and I don’t know what it is. And now I, on one hand, try to find out what is this toxicity of this mixture? Because we can determine toxicity without knowing what it is, but then only from the mixer and then on the other hand to say, okay, but now we want to find out what are the single ingredients.
Lisa (10m 4s): And that was not so easy in the end.
Laura (10m 8s): Yeah. Plastic seems so simple when you look at it. But then, you know, when we talk about these sorts of things, it’s actually quite complex and it seems a little complicated. Y ou were testing for different things. So oxidative stress, cytotoxicity, estrogenicity, Oh my gosh. I’m not sure if I’m saying this right, and antiandrogenicity. So can you tell us like what those are and why you are testing for those?
Lisa (10m 41s): So, first of all, to classify it a bit, we tested, so these he’s all different end points and we used solid based essays to test for them. So we did. So we conducted the study in vitro. So meaning we were using bacterials or yeast or human cells. So to only designate it, it does not allow a direct conclusion on human health effect. But so as a first screening, whether plastics contain chemical mixtures, that can potentially be toxic, but now we’re coming back to your question.
Lisa (11m 17s): So the oxidative stress and decide to toxicity are more like general screening or to say it the other way around I’m at two end points, which are rather unspecific. So we used them to investigate whether the extracts can contain chemicals that are potentially problematic for the cells that might interact with the metabolism of the <inaudible> or use, or the production of reactive oxygen species.
Lisa (11m 52s): So it’s more like a screening tool, which reacts to the wide variety of harmful compounds. And then on the edit and the estrogenicity and the antiandrogenicity are specific end points. These are like, they say both endocrine or hormone, like they test for endocrine or hormonal effects. And estrogenicity means that something X like the female sex hormone, estrogen, and anti-androgenic means that something inhibits the effect of the male sex hormone testosterone. Lisa (12m 34s): So, and we tested for these later end points because it has been previously been reported that plastics can contain chemicals did have these endocrine effects. Laura (12m 48s): Absolutely. Yeah. And I’m really worried about that because like, I’m a mom. And so I just don’t want to be giving like young children, things that are going to mess their hormone levels. So that’s one of the main reasons why I use glass or why, like, I don’t give my kid canned food because I know the cans are lined with BPA. I know that this is like, we’re going to save this question for later, but are you worried about BPA? Like, do you have, like, are you worried?
Lisa (13m 23s): I want to put it a bit the other way around. So I wouldn’t say that it’s especially BPA I”m worried about, so BPA is the chemical, which people associate with plastics they are always worried about, and it got a lot of public attention and there hasn’t been a lot of public pressure that producers phase it out. But the thing is that the producers, they use alternatives that are not necessarily better, but I just not regulated yet.
Lisa (13m 58s): And which did not receive so much attention up to date. So for example, BPS or BPF or some totally different compounds. So I’m rather, I’m worried about that. These other chemicals don’t receive that attention. And there was no pressure that there was a faced out, even though they may have a similar effect or even worse, we don’t know.
Laura (14m 25s): Yeah. It could be worse, which is very scary. And, and if you’re a parent and you’re trying to do the right thing and you, you buy plastic, that’s BPA free, then yeah. It could have what you’re saying, BPS or BPF, and it might be less studied. It might be doing the same thing. We had a scientist come on the show who said that BPA is a failed contraceptive. From the 1940s, which is so crazy, I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s so weird that someone would take it off the shelf like decades later and decide it makes plastic kind of.
Laura (15m 6s): I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. So, so you were testing things, so you basically went to the grocery store and picked up some common plastic items. So were there types of plastic that had the highest toxicity? Like were there differences you notice in different products?
Lisa (15m 26s): Yeah. So what I said already is that we T this the different types. So these types, I mean, different polymer types, for example, like the polyethylene or the polystyrene, but we also tested for polyurethane polyvinylchloride and poly lactic acid, and all the products made of the three. I just named of these three polymer types, contain toxicity and induced really strong effects in our cell based essays.
Lisa (15m 60s): And on the other hand of the spectrum, like the products based on PET or HDPE and where the products with the least toxicity, however, I have to say that the, the majority’s of all the products we analyzed contained somehow, or some toxicity, but there was on one hand for each polymer type. There was yeah.
Lisa (16m 30s): At least one product with toxicity. And that means that we can say, okay, polyurethane, polyvinyl chloride PLA seemed to be worse kind of in our study in PET and HDPE seemed to be better. But then for the other polymer types, the example for polystyrene, we don’t really know. And then we also tested four or five products per polymer type. So at that point, I would rather say that it’s really specific to the product itself, whether it is toxic or not, and not so much up to the polymer type.
Laura (17m 13s): So it could be the same type of plastic, but two different items. And then those two different items could vary quite a lot in terms of being toxic.
Lisa (17m 21s): Yeah. For example, you can have one P S food container and then one P S yogurt cup, and they might contain totally different chemicals and a totally different toxicity. And then on the other hand, you might also have two items which look completely the same, like for example, two yogurt cups, one made of PS and one made of PE. And then one of them might be containing toxic chemicals and the other not.
Lisa (17m 52s): So it’s not, there’s no chance for the consumer to differentiate like visually, whether one product is better than the other with regards to the safety.
Laura (18m 5s): Wow. That’s wild. So there’s really nothing the consumer can, can do in terms of choosing different types of plastics necessarily.
Lisa (18m 15s): Yeah. So, I mean, I would suggest to avoid some types of plastics, like for example, PVC, Usually contains a high amount of additives, a high amount of chemicals. And for which we also also saw in, our, our study that it contains a lot of toxic chemicals or toxic chemical mixtures. And then on the other hand, I would also avoid products, I mean, I don’t know how it is.
Lisa (18m 49s): How is it in Canada? Do you have labeling on the products, which plastic type it is? Laura (18m 55s): We have numbers on the bottom. So usually you can look at the bottom of something and it’ll be like a number one to number seven.
Lisa (19m 1s): So I guess that’s the same numbering as we have here in Germany. So PVC would be, for example, number three. So you should, avoid number three. And then there are also some plastic types labelled, or some products labelled with number seven and number seven can be all other polymer types, which are not included in the, in the numbering from one to six. So here it is not transparent what polymer type it is.
Lisa (19m 34s): So I would also avoid using those. Yeah. And then there are some other recommendations, as I said before, to not heat up the plastic, because that increases the leeching of chemicals and to avoid to store your food and plastics, because the longer the food is in there, the more chemicals might get into the food out of the plastic. And then as you said, especially it’s might be a more true if the food is fatty or acid, or alkaline because that might favor the release of chemicals and then you, what you can always do.
Lisa (20m 11s): And even if there is no living without plastic today, but you can still try to minimize it and buy fresh food or unpacked unpacked products.
Laura (20m 22s): Absolutely. Yeah. And a lot of us that are listening to the show probably are on that lifestyle path really is where we’re just trying to avoid packaging for the environment, but also for like the health of our bodies. Right?
Lisa (20m 36s): Yeah, totally. But then when I might, that’s something, what we also need to consider. If we take our alternatives, instead of plastics, they might not necessarily be, be better. So it’s not always that plastic is the worst material, which exists. So to only also keep in mind that there might be also other materials we are using that might contain some chemicals, which are, yeah.
Lisa (21m 9s): Not necessarily better than those included in plastics.
Laura (21m 12s): Are you thinking about like metals or something or like, like PFAS treating paper to make paper hold liquid?
Lisa (21m 20s): Yeah. Things like that. But then also a little bit about like the so-called bioplastics what plant based materials, which are basically, yeah. Like the bio-plastics are either made of renewable resources or might biodegrade and environment, but they, are still plastics and there are still chemicals, which have to be used in them, so.
Laura (21m 50s): Wow. Yeah. You’ve you found some toxicity in bio-plastics during your study, did you?
Lisa (21m 57s): Yeah. So in this study we only analyzed one type of bio-plastics, which is polylactic acid (PLA) and that’s a bio based and a biodegradable plastic. And actually we found in all those four products we found and the chemical mixtures included in them induced similar unspecific toxicity as those included in the PVC.
Lisa (22m 30s): So with regard to the unspecific toxicity, not the endocrine-like effect, but still, they seem to contain a lot of chemicals where we don’t know how safe they are. Laura (22m 44s): Wow. Yeah. I didn’t know that. So not only could we be getting chemicals in ourselves, but if we put those bio-plastics into well, you usually need a high heat composting facility, but then oftentimes that’s used for dirt or so maybe we’re also getting, you know, chemicals out into, like, I know that they use it sometimes for like restoration projects, like for rivers or like parks and things.
Lisa (23m 13s): They usually use it. Right. E specially for applications in the environment also for agricultural foils or something like that, because they said, Oh, okay, that can easily biodegrade. But then even when it biodegrades these chemicals, they must be go somewhere. So they, they will also go into the environment.
Laura (23m 36s): <inaudible> yeah. I worry about that with my home, compost, just putting things in there and I kind of wonder, you know, like I’ve put a paper towel in there before then I’m like, Hmm. There’s that paper towel that’s going to like, you know, but I probably think,
Lisa (23m 52s): Yeah, but I think the papers should be all right. Other than the plastic plastic bag.
Laura (23m 59s): Yes. Yes. I definitely keep that out. What else did you find out in your study?
Lisa (24m 5s): Well, I just want to mention that we are currently conducting a study on bioplastics and where we screen a wider arrange of different bioplastic types. So hopefully in the near future, we know more about not only polylactic acid, but whether the same effects are also true for other types of bio-plastics.
Laura (24m 26s): So we can watch out for that probably coming soon.
Lisa (24m 29s): Hopefully yeah. But now I’m getting back to the original study. So yeah, what I already said, we found a lot of toxicity in this product. Might it be rather some chemicals which induce un specific effects, or also some chemicals or chemicals mixtures, which acted similar to the hormone testosterone. But then on the other hand, what I am set in the beginning is that we conducted a chemical analysis. And here, what we found is that a product can contain up to over 100 chemicals, one single product.
Lisa (25m 9s): And that’s a whole lot when we even, we imagined that . And then most of these chemicals, they are unknown. So we can’t identify them like with our current used or regularly applied methods. So in this study of our product or the percentage of more than 80% of the chemicals, we could not identify. So we don’t know what chemical it is.
Lisa (25m 40s): And when we don’t know what it is, we, we can’t say, okay, this chemical has this toxicity. So that’s further, somehow problematic. And then what I also kind of mentioned before already, or what I found astonishing, is that , something that looks the same can actually have a completely different chemical composition, like the example of what the yogurt cup. And then what, before the found is that we tested food, contact materials, as I said, and also some materials without food contact.
Lisa (26m 19s): And our hypothesis was that we would find more toxicity in the materials without food contact. But interestingly, also some of the materials with food contact contained a really high chemical toxicity.
Laura (26m 39s): Yeah. It’s really disturbing that we don’t know what a lot of these things are. Is there something that like the producers can do or like, is there something we could do politically or should there be a regulating body on plastic? Like, is there anything we can kind of do to improve the safety of plastics?
Lisa (27m 1s): Yeah. I think there are different levels where we connect what you mentioned already. Like we have, on one hand, we have the consumer, we talked a little bit about what the consumer can do before. Like for example, as a storage, to not heat up the plastics to try to minimize it, but the producer can all, the consumer can also just ask for alternatives in the supermarket to put some more pressure on the supplier or the producer themselves.
Lisa (27m 36s): And then there is what the producer can do. So they can try to optimize the production process or to develop plastics that require less chemicals so that we reduce the chemical complexity of our products. And then what we also saw in our study that there are safer alternatives already on the market. So there were some products which were actually safe with regard to the chemicals they include.
Lisa (28m 8s): So if the producer would make openly available, the chemical composition of this product, others could use that and orientate on these. So it’s not hopeless to, to put it like that. So there is already good alternatives on the market, but then one thing would, which is really important that which could help a lot is that the producer is transparent on the chemicals they use in their products.
Lisa (28m 42s): So which, which they at the moment, not necessarily are because they kind of want to keep the recipe. And then on the other hand, yeah. Well, that’s why they might not make it openly available.
Laura (28m 57s): Like competition-wise or like toxicity- wise. Cause maybe they know. Yeah.
Lisa (29m 3s): I would rather say competition-wise Oh, surely you liked it that day. Yeah. Because if they have a product which they sell well, they might not want to share how they produced it.
Laura (29m 19s): And I saw that you spoke at the food package forum, which is pretty cool. So do you see food packaging companies, are they interested in sustainability or health? Lisa (29m 30s): So actually I have not been in so close contact with a lot or with a lot of food packaging companies themselves, but from the little exchange I had, as well as from some personal impressions I gained, I have, or I can say that I have the feeling that the food companies are actually interested that their products are sustainable and that they do not produce any harm, but I can’t give you any percentage how many actually are caring about it.
Lisa (30m 7s): So that might also depend on the company, but I had the impression that they do care, the problem, or also the challenge they may face is that it’s also not easy for them to generate products that are safe. So that might be on one, on one hand that there lot of different companies, which are included in the production of just one product. So it is one company producing the pre-production palette.
Lisa (30m 37s): Then there is the second company, for example, producing the, the plastic film, and then another one is producing the box and so on and so on. Laura (30m 47s): Yeah.
Lisa (30m 49s): Each step of the production, there’s another set of chemicals added. And since they don’t communicate them so well or transparently throughout this whole processing, they might not know which chemicals are actually in the end product. So that’s, again, the problem with the transparency. And then on the other hand, there’s also this, non-intentionally added chemicals we talked about before, which they themselves might not know, but I don’t want to let them through like an excuse.
Lisa (31m 28s): So what they could actually do is like to test their products for, for, for the safety. Like for example, what we did that they combined like solid based essays to test for the overall toxicity of the chemical mixture. So they can even assess toxicity of chemicals they don’t know. And then on the other hand use chemical analysis to identify the, the, the chemicals in there. So, so I, it might not be an easy job for them and they are, but there is still some way forward what they could improve.
Lisa (32m 6s): But I would not say that they are not interested in it. Laura (32m 10s): That’s an interesting point about how packaging can have many different types of plastic or different, different parts. Like even a big tub of yogurt is like one kind of plastic. And then you take off the lid and then it’s got like a, like a plastic bag kind of cover that you have to take off, or even like a lot of water bottles. The, I think it’s like PET that the bottle is, and then like the cap is different. Right? Yeah. I’ve never thought about that before that a food company could be packaging f rom multiple like suppliers, I guess.
Lisa (32m 43s): Yeah. On one hand, these different polymer types in one product. And then on the other hand, like that one, even just a lid might go through so many different hands and everyone adds something to it and making it really complex composition in the end.
Laura (33m 7s): Yeah. I think, I just feel like we’re so far off from like having this all regulated or like have it nice and clean so we know it’s not being toxic.
Lisa (33m 20s): Like, it seems like we’ve got a big, a big job to do to make sure that our, our food, I mean, particularly I’m worried about food because that’s what we’re ingesting right. That’s there because it’s most relevant for human health. But then on the other hand you also have the environment, right? Yeah. So if it ends up in the environment like trash, yeah. They might also be chemicals released. But then yeah, as I said, I mean, there is a way the kind of hope because there are these good alternatives and I think, yeah, it’s just we have to get this change started that the, the chemical complexity is reduced and that the safety is considered more into, in the production of plastics.
Laura (36m 5s): this is really cool that you’re doing all this work. So what got you into plastics?
Lisa (36m 12s): So yeah, I think what interests me so much about it instead, it’s so ubiquitous in our everyday life. So we are always surrounded by it, but still we don’t know. So little about it, like about the actual composition about the safety. So they are some topics always popping up like microplastics, but then I had the feeling that these, these chemicals in our products and does safety doesn’t get the attention it needs somehow.
Lisa (36m 45s): So that was one thing that is so omnipresent present. And then so little studied. And then on the other hand, the project I’m part of is an inter [inaudible] disciplinary product. Like you introduced it already and it’s called plastics and 3 (37m 5s): It’s P L a S T X. Yeah.
Lisa (37m 8s): Yeah. You can also Google that if you, if you want to find out more about it. So the interesting thing about the plastic project is that it takes an holistic approach to investigate the role of plastics on one hand in our society and then also the opportunities of plastic and then also potential problems associated with plastics. And it finds, it tries to find solution, but also asked whether the alternatives are better than plastics.
Lisa (37m 45s): So the interesting thing here is it’s like an interdisciplinary research that we not only focus on the topic from one side, but from very different disciplines. And we also try to exchange with diverse stakeholders in the field to integrate their opinion and to, like to in the end find solution strategies which we can actually can put into reality or which are realizable or which are feasible objects also for the different stakeholders involved.
Laura (38m 22s): Yeah. And you mentioned tradeoffs, And I’m worried about that too. So plastic is easy. It’s a byproduct of oil and gas, so there’s lots of it around it’s I think very terrible for the environment, but you know, let’s say we just switched From plastic shopping bags to paper bags and we have to start worrying about the forests that are going to be providing them. And if they’re going to be sustainable. And we talked in this episode about the bio-plastics and I had no idea that they had like any chemicals that that could be toxic in bio-plastics.
Laura (38m 58s): But I did know from another scientist that came on to show that bio-plastics are, are almost like just as strong as regular plastics in the ocean. So if you just throw like a bioplastic cup in the ocean, like it’s not just gonna break down into corn and be like fish food, it’s actually going to like, yeah, it’s going to stay there and, and cause problems and it can still kill Marine life and, and stuff like that. So yeah, I worry about that.
Lisa (39m 26s): Yeah. That’s totally true. It does not mean only because it’s labelled biodegradable that it bio grades in every natural surrounding. So for example, and you example, in the ocean, so it might only biodegrade under certain condition like typical composting conditions and then only if it’s under these conditions for a really long time. So yeah, it’s a bit difficult. I would say
Laura (39m 54s): It is difficult. Yeah. Because it’s, plastic is so valuable to, to people and to businesses and stuff. So it’s a tricky problem that we have, but you know, when you go to some places that don’t have any waste disposal and you see it everywhere, like on the beaches or in their, you know, rivers, it’s, it’s a lot of rivers are full of plastic at this point, you know, it’s quite an alarming problem, but it’s been very interesting talking to you about the, the chemical aspect, because I’ve always wondered about that.
Laura (40m 28s): Like we know that microplastic getting into fish, but is it a problem? Is it just totally like a neutral substance or are there toxins that are attached to it? Like what are they doing to the fish when it’s accumulating? And so yeah, I’ve been kind of worried about all that stuff.
Lisa (40m 44s): Yeah. We actually, there’s also another study we’re just performing on microplastics, but there, we also put the focus on whether it’s the chemicals included in these plastics and also, the microplastics and which drive the toxicity of microplastics or whether it’s the characteristics of the particle, like the shape or the size, which induces negative effects on for example, organisms and Fresh water.
Laura (41m 16s): . Oh, wow. I I’ve heard that plastic can act as a sponge as well. So even if the chemicals, like not inherently made in the plastic, like maybe chemicals floating in the water could attach to the plastic. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about that. I don’t know if that happens or not.
Lisa (41m 34s): Yeah. Yeah. That’s actually can also happen that yeah. The plastic, what are the chemicals adsorbed to the plastics and that they are released at a later point again. So yeah. That’s totally true.
Laura (41m 50s): Yeah. Well, yeah, they said it was a sponge. I remember someone saying it can act like a sponge.
Lisa (41m 54s): That’s a good expression. I think. Laura (41m 58s): So you mentioned a couple of things too, you know, we can try to avoid heating our food and plastic or microwaving it. We can try to avoid storing our food in plastic. So I have glass containers. I’ve I’ve I have a pantry full of jars of all different sizes. And I bought from Costco. I don’t, I don’t know what would be the equivalent in Germany. It’s like you, I don’t have a membership, but it’s like a giant box store basically. And they sell really nice thick glass containers, like really nice big ones.
Laura (42m 32s): And they do have a plastic lid, but I don’t pile my food high enough to ever touch the plastic. So hopefully that’s okay. But are there other things that you do in your life to like to avoid plastic or to be sustainable?
Lisa (42m 46s): Yeah, as I said already, I tried to, to minimize the plastic I use, although it’s not possible living without it, but like to, to buy of food on local markets, to buy it unpacked. And then also, I don’t know if these also exist in Canada, unpacked stores where you can pack your food yourself and, in for example, glass jars.
Laura (43m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. Lisa (43m 17s): So I think, especially with food, there are a lot of options to reduce plastics a lot, especially when you think about these stores and then yeah. Just minimize the contact. I mean, as I said, yeah, the like the storage and then even not, I mean, there are these container plastic containers with said, which say that they are microwave proof or something, but still, I just avoid do things to heat something in the container itself.
Laura (43m 54s): Yeah. And I don’t think anyone’s really testing for these things except for like people like you. Right. Like I’m sure a lot of scientists are, but I just wonder if the companies, I don’t think companies are testing their packaging themselves. It just doesn’t seem like something they do. I’m sure it’s like an expensive process. You know?
Lisa (44m 11s): I mean, there are some, at least in the EU, there are regulations, there are some chemicals, which are not allowed, they are listed chemicals, which should not be used and plastics because they are known toxins. But then they only list like some chemicals, there might be new chemicals on the market, which are not yet listed. And then they also not test like the whole chemical mixtures included in one product.
Lisa (44m 42s): So they might test one chemical they use, but the toxicity of a mixture might be different than the, the toxicity of just one chemicals because also the chemicals might interact with each other leading to different effects.
Laura (45m 0s): Oh yeah. I forgot about that too. That, that can… Absolutely. Yeah. I think we talked about that like a couple of years ago on the show that we don’t know how, how certain things, so yeah. One thing might not be that bad, but then when it reacts with another thing that’s in there, it could do some crazy things that maybe aren’t so good. So yeah, I forgot about that part too. It’s wild and complex and very complex. Yeah. And, and like I said, it looks so simple when you look at a yogurt container or something, you’re like, Hmm. It’s just like white plastic, you know, but there’s a very big background to it and to how it was made.
Lisa (45m 33s): Yeah. Yeah. And then I question myself sometimes why do we not just need one material for yogurt cup? Because I mean, one material seems to be, yeah. To fulfill the function. It needs to, to be a yogurt cup. Why do we need more materials for it? So if you know, one yougurt cup is safe, why can’t we just take this yogurt cap, but yeah, I guess that’s because there’s many different companies which exist and they all want to, to make profit and produce their own materials.
Lisa (46m 6s): But yeah, sometimes it’s an overwhelming complexity out there. Laura (46m 12s): See if there was more standardization, like you’re talking about like, if every yogurt cup was the same, then it would probably make it so much easier to recycle them because as well. Yeah. Yeah. You, you don’t have to sort through the different kinds and all that stuff. I find that with glass too, we just did an episode on glass and a glass maker was saying, there’s just so many different beer bottles, wine bottles, champagne bottles. I’m like liquor bottles and like nonalcoholic beverage bottles that there’s just so many, like, it’s, it’s just too complicated to sort and return.
Laura (46m 44s): But if you had like one standard beer bottle and Ontario, like where I live in Canada, we kind of used to do this a little bit, like a lot of the major beer brands. They all have that standard Brown little bottle and you can return them. And then it’s super, super easy to like sanitize and redistribute them. Right. But if every brewery is using a different bottle, it’s it just becomes a very difficult program to return those.
Lisa (47m 11s): That’s true. Yeah. Yeah. And the same way, as you said, with plastic is with the recycling, it would make it so much easier to, to just have, like, for example, the PS yogurt cup and also the, I don’t know for polylactic acid or PET yogurt cup, but then I think that’s just difficult to standardize it. I think that’s not,
Laura (47m 36s): Yeah. It’s a very complex problem. And, and I love yogurt and I feel very bad buying it. So I don’t, and then I’ll buy like the biggest tub that I can, and it’s actually really easy to make as well. You can just put it into the milk, you can get a whole other batch, but then you got to get a container of milk as well. Or you can do vegan. Like if you’re vegan and you want to do these things, you can make vegan yogurt and stuff. But I just wish there was a returnable yogurt container because it would just suit my life so much. And I don’t mind to drop it off again, you know, so I can bring it home because I found a company that does glass containers of yogurt.
Laura (48m 13s): But they don’t take them back. So now I’m stuck with like a dozen, little tiny glass containers and I use them, but like, I don’t think I’m ever really going to use 12 of them. So I had to stop buying those as well. Cause I just have too many.
Lisa (48m 26s): Yeah, yeah. That’s I mean, even if it’s glass, it would be like sustainability wise, or recycling wise. It would be so much, or from an ecological point of view, it would be so much better to, to recycle it and not to use single use glass containers because then you only use it. Once and in the end the ecological footprint might be much higher than from a plastic product you use once because you just you’d use a whole more resources for the, for the glass container.
Lisa (49m 5s): So that’s something I’m also be to be considered when thinking about at alternatives. Like if you not only want to consider the toxicity of something, but also some ecological footprint, the overall ecological footprint. So there’s always like kind of, you always have to, could you say gamble a bit? Do you care more about the chemicals and then you should maybe take the glass container or do you care more about the CO2 emissions and then you might choose the single used plastic instead of the single used glass, but then it’s always better to have some thing, which is, which iss recycled, which, or, which is used multiple times.
Laura (49m 54s): Yeah. Just reusing things is just, it’s so great. But it’s so logistically expensive for a company to produce a food product and then somehow collect their containers back and then sanitize them and then reuse them. Like, it seems like it would save them money, but it also seems complicated. And then you’ve got to put like trucks on the road or something, you know, to bring them back. So it’s tough. Yeah.
Lisa (50m 21s): Yeah. I mean, yeah, it would be easier if they have some kind of incentive or to have more incentive to take, to take it actually back and to Reuse it.
Laura (50m 30s): Yeah. We’re actually having this problem in the Arctic as well. I just watched a film on this where everything has to be shipped in to Iqaluit, like one of our Northern Arctic towns in Canada and everything’s either shipped or flown in, but nothing leaves. So they just have this massive dump and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And they’re just not really sure what to do with it because, and, and, and one guy was saying they even have to fill the ballast tanks of the ship because you don’t want to ship sitting too high. But when a ship drops off all the cargo in the Arctic, then it’s gotta go back empty.
Laura (51m 4s): And so they have to fill tanks with water. Oh yeah. When they could be taking garbage back, but it’s just, you know, it’s a complicated thing and people have to do it and make money and stuff. So, yeah, it’s a complex problem. But studies like these are really helpful because they, they, you know, they bring awareness to what we’re eating and what’s going into the environment and that there are better solutions and, and stuff. So this has been great. It’s been very great talking to you. So thank you so much, Lisa.
Lisa (51m 32s): Yeah. Thank you a lot. Thanks for having me.
Laura (51m 35s): Oh, it was great. That was Lisa Zimmerman. She is a PhD researcher in the aquatic eco toxicology department at Goethe university in Frankfurt.
Zero Waste Countdown Show 