Glad I held on to my kitchen utensils. Given how broad the hype cycle was and how I was getting push notifications on my phone about it from multiple "news" sources it felt like hysteria. Likely helped black friday sales at Sur la Table though.
“As Schwarcz points out, it appears the study’s hypothesis is correct, that black plastic recycled out of electronic devices, mostly in Asia, is getting back into the American supply chain for household kitchen items, including spatulas.”
I think of this as "too technical to be correct." It's a really good example of how when writing for HN as an audience, it's best to use as few concrete details as possible. They will be scrutinized endlessly, and any flaw or inconsistency in them no matter how trivial or spurious will be taken as refutation of the entire statement.
Basically, all plastic has chemicals that, given enough time, will leech into your food and cause contamination. The question is; how much do we tolerate as a society while still enjoying the cost and convenience of plastic?
For me, I try to minimize plastic contact as much as possible. I only use metal utensils. I also use cast iron or stainless steel cookware with no coatings (other than seasoning the cast iron).
1) https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=does+pl...
2) https://www.fda.gov/food/food-ingredients-packaging/packagin...
Silverware Bin; Will contaminate each utensil a predictable amount per unit of time, consistently, up until a saturation point where the utensile cannot contain any more contamination. So the max amount of contaminant is 1x[surface area of utensil].
Meat and veggies; Will be contaminated based on the amount of surface area in contact with plastic, and the amount of time time they spend in contact with plastic. So the max amount of contaminant is [surface area of food touching plastic]x[duration of exposure]. An important note, the food is usually refrigerated. Heat is what releases many of the chemicals from the plastic.
A cooking utensile will contaminate food a highly variable amount based on; The amount of surface area that touches the food, how long the utensile touches the food, the temperature of the food, the fat content of the food, the temperature of the cookware/utensile, the age and quality of the utensile, and a slew of other factors.
Additionally, we both have to deal with the three things you brought up. We all have dishwashers, and plastic bins, and plastic packaging. But you are ALSO using plastic utensils. So you invariably will have more chemicals from plastic than me, despite any other factors.
Previous numbers, incorrectly stated at 10x true values: "of high concern because they are 80% of daily value"
New numbers: "still of high concern even though they are only 8% of daily value"