Your kitchen is supposed to be the peak of clean in the home - after all, the average person isn't eating their dinner from the toilet. While most of us have hopefully moved on from the grimy days of student kitchens and letting the dishes pile up, there's nothing better than a sparkling kitchen. For anyone who's ever worked in a kitchen, you'll know health is paramount when it comes to keeping customers safe, but did you know there could be a major health risk in your own cupboards?
We're all told that recycling is good for the environment, but with that comes a potentially dangerous side effect thanks to some recycled materials apparently posing a problem for our own health.
In 2018, biochemist Andrew Turner published a paper which claimed one everyday household item is made from recycled electronic waste and pointed out this was evident due to high levels of flame retardants.
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The biochemist from the University of Plymouth maintained that black plastic found in a variety of cheaper kitchen utensils could be bad for our health. Turner says that the optical sensors in recycling facilities don't detect these harmful chemicals, but with TV and computer casings often being recycled into utensils including spatulas and serving spoons, we might be ingesting worrying quantities.
Turner says that because these flame retardants aren't bound to utensils, when you heat something like a spatula, the plastic compounds can 'migrate' into your food.
These Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) can interfere with your hormonal system, while other papers claim they could be linked to diabetes, thyroid disease, and cancer. A separate study says that those with the highest blood levels of PBDEs have a 300% increase in dying from cancer when compared to those with the lowest levels.
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Advocacy group Toxic-Free Future published a study in October 2024, suggesting that kitchen utensils boast the highest levels flame retardants of all the consumer products tested. While Megan Liu, the science and policy manager at Toxic-Free Future, pointed out that children's toys are also high on the list, kitchen utensils come out on top.
Speaking to the Atlantic, Liu explained: "When you’re using black plastic items, there’s going to be a risk that they could be contaminated."
Even though we're told to recycle all out plastics, Liu is actually advising us to ditch our utensils and other black plastics: "I personally have been throwing out my black plastic takeout containers...It’s scary to think that those might be reentering other products with the same flame retardants."
The advice is to swap black plastic utensils with steel or silicone versions, hoping to keep those nasty chemicals out of our bodies. Next time you're heading to IKEA and thinking of getting a new cutlery set, make sure you leave those black plastics on the shelf.