Trace chemicals in everyday food packaging cause worry over cumulative threat

In a study published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food that hadnt been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see what a difference a few days could make: The participants levels of bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic, plunged by two-thirds, on average while those of the phthalate DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.