Toxic tableware flooded the market. Disposable tableware such as chopsticks and lunch boxes can be seen everywhere in our lives. Street snack bars, food stalls, fast food restaurants and other places are not very high-end, and the tableware used is mostly disposable. Moreover, in the trash cans of various office buildings and most office places, a large amount of such garbage will be "received" every day.
According to the regulations, the main raw material for producing lunch boxes is polypropylene, with a content of about 80%; As a filler, the content of industrial calcium carbonate should not exceed 20%. Polypropylene has strong plasticity, and the produced lunch box has good use strength and is not easy to deform. Industrial calcium carbonate is a kind of stone powder with poor plasticity, and it is difficult to stick together if the powder is used excessively. Therefore, the produced lunch boxes are prone to quality problems such as softening and leakage.
Soft to the touch, easy to tear and smelly, these are the same characteristics of these unqualified disposable lunch boxes. Soft feel makes the lunch box very inconvenient to use, and even causes things like food or soup to overflow when eating; This smell is a clear sign that the materials used to make lunch boxes contain toxic substances. But why are such unqualified tableware so widely circulated in the market? Why do so many catering companies use it and so many consumers don't refuse it?
"This disposable lunch box can sell seven or eight boxes a day." Recently, the reporter found that this kind of inferior lunch box was sold in many stalls in the eastern suburb market of Beijing and the wholesale market of agricultural and sideline products in Laiguangying. A stall owner said that this kind of box lunch sells well because of its low price. The reporter noticed that there are four kinds of disposable lunch boxes, the highest price is 0.4 yuan per serving, and the lowest is only 0.09 yuan. A stall owner told reporters that the fastest-selling product is the one of 0. 16 yuan, which usually sells seven or eight boxes a day. There are about 800 disposable lunch boxes in each box, which are sold to restaurants in the city. Moreover, many stall owners of wholesale lunch boxes have said that the low price is an important reason for the best-selling of this inferior lunch box.
Xinfadi Wholesale Market is the largest wholesale market of agricultural products in Beijing and the distribution center of disposable plastic products in Beijing. Disposable lunch box manufacturers around Beijing have wholesale outlets in this market. The reporter turned around and found that every store selling disposable lunch boxes was filled with samples of various disposable lunch boxes, which were biodegradable and environmentally friendly, and the prices ranged from 9 cents to 4 cents. Do these environmentally friendly products really have degradable functions? A salesperson in the factory told the reporter the real answer. It turns out that most of the so-called degradable lunch boxes sold here are counterfeit products, which are made of some plastic waste and chemical raw materials. When the reporter asked what kind of raw material it was made of, the salesperson kept silent first, and finally two words popped up from the corner of his mouth: paraffin. The salesperson said that only in this way can the cost be reduced. If lunch boxes are truly degradable materials, then the cost of each lunch box is nearly 20 cents, which is too expensive to sell. They have been making this paraffin lunch box for many years. They used to sell in the Dazhong Temple wholesale market, but now they sell in Xinfadi, and no one has ever inspected them.
Sales staff also told reporters that they have cheaper box lunch here and asked reporters if they want it. When the reporter walked into the warehouse with her, she found that the so-called cheaper lunch box turned out to be a disposable plastic foam lunch box that had already been eliminated. This kind of lunch box was forbidden to be produced and sold by the state as early as 200 1.
It is understood that unqualified disposable lunch boxes mainly contain a large number of toxic substances such as industrial calcium carbonate and paraffin wax, and some also use waste plastics. Wang Zhao, director of hematology department of Beijing Friendship Hospital, said that long-term use of unqualified disposable lunch boxes containing a large amount of industrial calcium carbonate will have an impact on the metabolic system of the human body. First of all, it is easy to form gallstones and kidney calculi. In addition, industrial calcium carbonate contains a lot of heavy metals, which may be more harmful to human body. Because it contains lead, lead is also very harmful to the digestive tract and nervous system of human body. Children, in particular, are in the developmental stage, and their nervous system is in the process of formation. After eating a lot of lead, it will have an impact on the child's nervous system, and ADHD will occur.
The test results are worrying. At present, China uses more than 65.438+02 billion lunch boxes every year, and each person will use nearly 654.38+00 on average. Its consumption places are relatively concentrated. In addition to office buildings, tourist attractions, shopping malls, amusement places and stations are also places where consumption is relatively high. 165438+On June 6th, CCTV exposed that the disposable lunch boxes produced in Tianjin used more than 160 times of "waste", and a large number of industrial calcium carbonate, waste plastics and industrial paraffin were therefore consumed and imported by consumers.
At the same time, the report "Disposable Tableware and Food Packaging Bags/Film Products"No. 12 of 2005 issued by the National Center for Quality Supervision and Inspection of Environmental Protection Products under the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine on September 9 showed that in 2002, the disposable tableware was subject to national supervision and spot check, and the sampling pass rate was 52%. In 2003, Hebei Province carried out the national supervision and spot check of disposable tableware, and the sampling pass rate was 43%. In 2004, Beijing Municipal Administration of Industry and Commerce and Beijing Environmental Tableware jointly organized a spot check on the Beijing market, and the sampling pass rate was 40%.
The report pointed out that there are very serious safety and quality problems in disposable tableware, which are mainly manifested as follows: First, there are big problems in sanitary performance. Due to the addition of a large number of calcium carbonate, industrial paraffin and recycled waste materials in the production raw materials, the evaporation residues (n-hexane, acetic acid) of the products seriously exceeded the standard; Second, poor performance, unqualified load, large volume deviation and leakage; Third, the degradation performance is not up to standard. Some enterprises regard products filled with calcium carbonate as degradation products, but such products cannot be truly degraded.
It is understood that there are two kinds of disposable tableware, one is mostly made of wood fiber, which belongs to environmental protection products and can be degraded; The other is chemical raw materials, which may contain toxic fillers and cannot be degraded. A large number of prohibited substances such as calcium carbonate, talcum powder, industrial paraffin and waste plastics are used in production, which will lead to the mutual dissolution of minerals and additives added in lunch boxes and water, vinegar and oil contained in food. After food enters the human body, it may cause indigestion, local pain, liver system diseases and other diseases, which will affect children's intellectual development, and even lead to gallstones, heavy metal poisoning and even cell canceration.