The correlation-causation in this article is really rather screwed up.
The way it really works for plastic is this: almost all bad plastic is black, but not all black plastic is bad. That's it.
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with virgin black plastics. (Well, at least, nothing more than is wrong with plastics in general.) So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources.
The trouble comes in when plastics get recycled. There may be sourcing issues for black resins, but the root of the matter is this: black plastics are typically pigmented with carbon black. Carbon black as a pigment is cheap, safe, and very effective. That's good! But that also means that when you throw together a pile of recycled sludge mix and it comes out beige, greige, or worse, you can't sell that (who would buy greige resin?? wait, don't answer that)... so you color it, cheaply... which means carbon black. So almost all random crappy recycled plastic resin ends up black. That's the real problem with black plastic.
This is correct. Sadly, this is also unhelpful. As long as you can't guarantee that the cooking utensil is from newly-made and clean black plastic from a reputable source, there is still risk. Think about a random convenience store item. OTOH e.g. a green or red utensil is free from that particular risk (unless a new investigation finds something for these types).
That is, a reputable source, e.g. an established cookware company, may proclaim that their existing black plastics are fine, safe for cookware, and have been tested. But a smart move for them would be to stop using black plastics for cookware, because a customer will just remember one highly reductionist association: "cookware + black plastic = poison". It's not always true, but it may sometimes be true, and that's enough.
Even if the particular research will be found lacking by new investigations and reproduction attempts, a lot of people will still remember this association for years, due to its shock value, simplicity, and trust to The Atlantic (which is generally a really good resource).
> because a customer will just remember one highly reductionist association: "cookware + black plastic = poison". It's not always true, but it may sometimes be true, and that's enough.
This and the fact that it's a high risk / low reward scenario.
> That is, a reputable source, e.g. an established cookware company, may proclaim that their existing black plastics are fine, safe for cookware, and have been tested.
Frankly, nobody should be so credulous as to trust what a consumer goods company claims. You just have to look up how often well trusted consumer goods companies get caught "accidentally" using slave labor.
The need is for a regulatory body like the EPA or FDA to step up and check that the claims are more than just that.
The issue here is that these plastics are super cheap and testing is expensive enough. I have absolutely no faith that a consumer goods company will follow through or continue to follow through without a monetary penalty. This is something that's just to easy to cut once headlines die down.
> So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources.
But how do you even judge that? My coffee machine is all black plastic. It has dozens of parts. The hot water runs by/over black plastic.
It's an expensive and reputable brand of coffee machine, but I have absolutely no illusions that some/most of the black plastic parts it contains are straight from different factories in China.
And I would be surprised if anybody QAs the chemical makeup of raw plastic input. As long as the parts mold correctly and hold up structurally, nobody would notice when the Chinese injection molder changes suppliers mid-batch.
> some/most of the black plastic parts it contains are straight from different factories in China.
Yes, they are.
> I would be surprised if anybody QAs the chemical makeup of raw plastic input. As long as the parts mold correctly and hold up structurally, nobody would notice when the Chinese injection molder changes suppliers mid-batch.
And yes, they do care. Critical parts (and food contact parts are always critical) usually specify a specific resin from a specific manufacturer on the procurement documentation. The major brands absolutely 100% audit this when they check in on their suppliers. And the major brands absolutely do check on their suppliers. (Many of them are even supplying the resin themselves, so they really care if it's getting diverted.) The factories are not incentivized to mess this up, because they know it's game over for their business with that brand (or even OEM/CM) if they screw up, so they instead get it right and just charge more. This is what you pay for when you buy name brand products.
And it's what you give up when you "save money" buying on AliExpress!
The recycled plastic may, indeed, be worse than "virgin", but any plastic melting in your food seems ill advised. I'm not a zealot refusing to drink out of a plastic cup, but spatulas see a lot more heat than most cookware. My wife and I noticed our plastic spatulas (including one from a well known "reputable" brand) showing signs of melting years ago, and into the trash they went. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
I don't think it's worth nit-picking in this case.
Everyone wants to reduce their plastic intake, but nobody wants to throw 80% in their kitchenware in the trash.
There's no obvious steps you can get people to follow to check if their spatula is one of the "good" ones, so tossing black plastic is a good concrete step to advise people to take.
Are you sure there's absolutely nothing wrong with virgin plastics? Maybe it'd be safer and simpler to just avoid plastic in e.g. cooking since the growing amount of research about effects of plastics doesn't seem very positive.
Maybe I'm having some kind of brain fart or mixed something up, but I thought "absolutely nothing" was a direct quote from them and no mention of plastics in general.
Is there a way to see if/how comment was edited?
I'll try to quote things more directly from now on...
The way it really works for plastic is this: almost all bad plastic is black, but not all black plastic is bad. That's it.
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with virgin black plastics. (Well, at least, nothing more than is wrong with plastics in general.) So there is no reason to fear black plastic from reputable sources.
The trouble comes in when plastics get recycled. There may be sourcing issues for black resins, but the root of the matter is this: black plastics are typically pigmented with carbon black. Carbon black as a pigment is cheap, safe, and very effective. That's good! But that also means that when you throw together a pile of recycled sludge mix and it comes out beige, greige, or worse, you can't sell that (who would buy greige resin?? wait, don't answer that)... so you color it, cheaply... which means carbon black. So almost all random crappy recycled plastic resin ends up black. That's the real problem with black plastic.