Derrick Teal  I  Editor-in-Chief

I wrote last month about how we’ve decided to rotate nine Essential Topics, including at least three each month between our website, eMagazine, videos, podcasts and eNewsletters. Another adjustment we’ve made affects that last one, our eNewsletters. The second eNewsletter of each month is going to include a lead feature that focuses on one of those nine Essential Topics. The feature last month was written by Wayne Labs, a longtime FE editor and our senior contributing technical editor, about removing PFAS from packaging materials.

Most of you are probably aware of what PFAS (or “forever chemicals”) are and how they can be as tough as a screw with a stripped head to remove. You might also be aware of how your bloodstream is probably filled with them right now and that your organs are absorbing them. What the health effects of PFAS are is still being studied, according to the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, but there are possible links to increased cholesterol levels, changes in liver enzymes, decreases in birth weights, decreased vaccine responses in kids and more.

A few days after we published that article, Grist published an article detailing how new research found that bottled water contains 100 times more plastic particles than previously thought. The researchers found that, interestingly, the type of plastic found wasn’t from the plastic bottles (PET) packaging, “Rather, they found more particles of polyamide (a type of nylon) and polystyrene, suggesting that the pollutants are, in a bit of irony, getting into bottled water as a result of the filling and purification process,” according to the article.

I’ve been of a mind that plastics are more like fire: They have the potential to be very destructive, but they can be very useful when used responsibly. But this new research has me feeling a little conflicted. Wayne’s article shares that a lot of PFAS contamination comes from coatings that can likely have an alternative that’s just as effective “to prevent seepage of food oils and greases in RTE foods/packaging.” So, there’s hope that they can be phased out.

But microplastics being introduced to bottled water via the filling and purification process instead of leaching from the container makes me wonder what other foods and beverages are having microplastics introduced to them during manufacture. Moreover, is it even possible to remove whatever is causing the contamination from the manufacturing process without incurring a huge expense or introducing some other potential contaminant?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to take up farming and only eat and drink what I can produce on my own. (Not that I could even if I wanted to.) It simply adds another layer to “I felt so much better about life before I knew (insert troubling knowledge here).” Welcome to the modern world. FE

Cheers,
Derrick