Study: Black plastic cookware, containers & toys could pose serious health risk

It may be time to invest in some new cooking utensils after a recent study found some common kitchen tools may be leaking dangerous flame retardant chemicals into your food. And the everyday items with the highest concentrations of these chemicals may many consumers. They might be a hold over from your college days. Or maybe they’re a brand new addition to your kitchen.Either way, a new study warns consumers may want to rethink their use of black plastic cooking utensils, toys and food containers. “What we found in our study was that flame retardants were popping up in black plastic household items like kitchen utensils, food service wear items like sushi trays and toys,” said Megan Liu, with Toxic Free Future and co-author of the new study published in Chemosphere magazine. Liu explains flame retardants are intentionally added into electronic enclosures like the plastic casing around tv’s or monitors- as a way to prevent fires. But when those items are recycled into other consumer goods – like black plastic utensils or storage containers- those fire retardants remain in high concentrations “We also know that flame retardants are able to leach out of kitchen utensils and into food,” said Liu....