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20 resultsShowing papers similar to Environmental and health hazards of chemicals in plastic polymers and products
ClearToxicity of plastic consumer products: a biological, chemical and social-ecological analysis
This study analyzed the toxic chemicals found in consumer plastic products, including additives, monomers, and processing by-products that can leach into food or the environment. The findings highlight that plastic toxicity extends beyond microplastic particles themselves — the chemicals embedded in plastics pose significant health risks through food packaging and environmental contamination.
Plastic additives and microplastics as emerging contaminants: Mechanisms and analytical assessment
Researchers reviewed how chemical additives mixed into plastics during manufacturing — including stabilizers, flame retardants, and plasticizers — can leach out throughout a plastic's lifecycle and pose risks to ecosystems and human health, with microplastics acting as carriers that concentrate and transport these hazardous chemicals.
Adverse Health Effects of Plastics
This review summarizes the adverse health effects associated with plastic exposure, including endocrine disruption, inflammation, and potential carcinogenicity from plastic additives and microplastic particles. It provides an accessible overview of mechanisms by which plastics can harm human health across multiple organ systems.
Examination of plastic’s hazards to human health underway
This study examined the multiple health hazards that plastics pose to humans across their entire life cycle, from fossil fuel extraction used as feedstocks through everyday use and disposal, conducting a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of exposure pathways and associated health effects.
Hazardous chemicals in recycled and reusable plastic food packaging
This study examines how recycling and reusing plastics for food packaging can introduce hazardous chemicals, including endocrine disruptors and carcinogens, into food. Recycling concentrates chemical contaminants from previous uses, while reusable containers can leach harmful substances over repeated wash cycles. The findings highlight a tension between reducing plastic waste and ensuring food contact materials remain safe for human health.
Release of chemical additives and potentially toxic elements from plastics under ambient outdoor environmental conditions
Researchers placed large pieces of seven commercial plastic polymers outdoors under natural conditions for extended periods and measured the release of phthalates, phenolic compounds, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers, finding that realistic environmental conditions cause significant leaching of toxic chemical additives.
Toxic Components of Plastic Pose Carcinogenic Threat to Public Health
A wide range of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals — including bisphenol A, phthalates, brominated flame retardants, and polychlorinated biphenyls — are incorporated into common plastic products and can leach out during use. This review argues that chronic low-level exposure to these plastic-associated chemicals poses serious genotoxic and cancer risks to humans, and calls for greater public awareness and investment in safer biodegradable alternatives.
Plastics and Health
This paper discusses the health implications of plastic exposure, examining the growing body of evidence connecting plastics and their additives to human health outcomes.
Tackling the toxics in plastics packaging
This review addresses the issue of hazardous chemicals migrating from plastic food packaging into food, including endocrine disrupters, carcinogens, and untested synthetic compounds. The author argues that current toxicity assessment methods for packaging chemicals are inadequate and that plastic packaging is an avoidable source of dietary chemical exposure. The study calls for systemic changes in how food packaging safety is regulated to address both plastic pollution and chemical contamination.
Impacts of plastic products used in daily life on the environment and human health: What is known?
Researchers reviewed toxicity data for the most common plastics used in everyday products, finding that polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is the most hazardous due to its monomer and additive chemistry, that additives are generally more toxic than the plastic monomers themselves, and that benzene, phthalates, and lead stabilizers pose the greatest risks to wildlife and humans.
Marine Litter Plastics and Microplastics and Their Toxic Chemicals Components
This review examined the chemical hazards posed by marine plastic litter and microplastics, focusing on persistent organic pollutants, flame retardants, plasticisers, and endocrine-disrupting additives that can leach from plastic polymers into marine food webs. The authors concluded that both the physical and chemical toxicity of marine plastics represent a serious and undercharacterised threat to biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and human health via seafood consumption.
Understanding the leaching of plastic additives and subsequent risks to ecosystems
This review explains how chemical additives in plastics -- including plasticizers, flame retardants, and stabilizers -- can leach out of microplastics into the environment and potentially into the human body. Some of these additives, such as phthalates and brominated flame retardants, are persistent, build up in living tissue, and are linked to hormone disruption and other health effects. The authors note that our understanding of the full toxicity risk from leaching plastic additives is still limited.
Environmental occurrence and ecotoxicological risks of plastic leachates in aquatic and terrestrial environments
This review examines how chemical additives that leach out of plastics -- including hormone disruptors like BPA and phthalates -- affect organisms in both water and land environments. The chemicals' harmful effects depend on environmental conditions like temperature and UV exposure, which influence how much leaches out and how easily organisms absorb it. The findings highlight that the danger of plastic pollution extends beyond the physical particles to the toxic chemicals they release.
The Environmental Hazards of Micro- and Nanoplastics
Researchers reviewed how microplastics — tiny plastic particles found everywhere in the environment — can enter the body, accumulate in tissues, and disrupt the immune, digestive, and nervous systems, with exposure linked to hormonal imbalances, chronic disease, and cancer risk.
Unveiling the Hidden Dangers of Plasticizers: A Call for Immediate Action
This review highlights the hidden health dangers of plasticizers -- chemicals added to plastics found in food containers, toys, cosmetics, and personal care items -- calling for immediate regulatory action given their widespread human exposure and evidence of endocrine disruption and other toxic effects.
The Toxicity of Plastics
This review synthesized over 200 studies on plastic toxicity, examining the physical, chemical, and biological threats posed by macro- and microplastics to ecosystems and human health, including their ability to cross biological barriers and carry chemical contaminants.
A Detailed Review Study on Potential Effects of Microplastics and Additives of Concern on Human Health
This detailed review examines the potential health effects of microplastics and the chemical additives they contain, which can include plasticizers, flame retardants, and stabilizers. Researchers describe how humans are exposed to these hazardous chemicals through ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact as microplastics break down in the environment. The study emphasizes that the combination of physical particle effects and chemical toxicity makes microplastics a uniquely complex health concern.
Plastic and Microplastic Wastes as Environmental Toxicants
This review covers the environmental accumulation of plastics and microplastics and their toxic chemical additives — including phthalates, flame retardants, bisphenol A, heavy metals, and PCBs — documenting contamination from urban regions to remote ecosystems and food/water supplies.
Toxic Chemicals and Persistent Organic Pollutants Associated with Micro-and Nanoplastics Pollution
Researchers reviewed how micro- and nanoplastics act as carriers for toxic chemical additives and persistent organic pollutants — like flame retardants and pesticides — making these contaminants more available and harmful once they enter food chains and human bodies. The review identifies major gaps in understanding how these chemicals detach from plastic particles inside living organisms and what health effects they cause.
Assessing the environmental and health impacts of plastic production and recycling
This review summarizes how plastic production and recycling both contribute to pollution and health problems, noting that plastics contain chemical additives like phthalates and bisphenols linked to hormone disruption and reproductive issues. The authors highlight that even recycling generates some pollutants, and the growing accumulation of microplastics in food and water raises additional health concerns.