Huang Bo exposed that disposable chopsticks turned yellow when soaked in water: discarding disposable chopsticks is not environmentally friendly but life-saving. Yesterday, one of Huang Bo's Weibo posts went viral among netizens. Huang Bo revealed that disposable chopsticks turned yellow when soaked in water. Judging from the picture, after the disposable chopsticks were soaked in water, the clean water was dyed yellow, and there were also spots of oil-like substances. He also joked: "Do you dare to drink this soup? Not using disposable chopsticks is not environmentally friendly, but life-saving!"

Small chopsticks? "White chopsticks" are made from industrial raw materials

Huaihua City, Hunan Province is one of the main producing areas of disposable chopsticks. There are more than 40 large and small disposable chopstick factories here, with an annual output of more than 1 billion pairs. At a chopstick factory in Xiaojiajia, Huitong County, the reporter witnessed the entire production process of disposable chopsticks.

Industrial sulfur, paraffin, sodium metabisulfite...

Chemical raw materials suddenly appeared during the manufacturing process

Workers first cut the bamboo into sections and then used a machine to beat it into pieces The blank is then dried in the oven. After drying, the chopstick blanks were tightly covered by a layer of plastic sheeting, with bursts of white smoke coming out from underneath, emitting a pungent smell. Workers at the factory told us that they are fumigating the chopsticks with sulfur to make them whiter and prevent them from molding. The reporter found that the sulfur they used was industrial sulfur, which is a chemical raw material. It will produce sulfur dioxide residue during the fumigation process, and the process of fumigating the chopsticks took two days.

After being smoked with sulfur, the blank is then whittled, and the chopsticks are formed. In order to make the chopsticks feel smoother, they must be polished. The reporter saw that there were not only chopsticks in the polishing machine, but also pieces of white stuff. The worker told us it was paraffin wax. Paraffin, which contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, is a low-end product in the petroleum refining process. In this way, after polishing with paraffin, the chopsticks are put into bags filled with chemical fertilizers and wait to be shipped out of the factory.

Using industrial hydrogen peroxide as a "bleach"? Boil moldy chopsticks and then sell them white

During the investigation, the reporter also discovered a strange phenomenon, some black chopsticks that had become moldy and deteriorated It is not thrown away, but is further processed. In Xichong Village, Huaihua, Hunan, a reporter saw a scene where black chopsticks were boiled white. The owner of this store told us that the bleach they use is hydrogen peroxide, and it takes 40 pounds to pour into one pot.

Industrial hydrogen peroxide is highly corrosive and bleaching. The black chopsticks boiled in industrial hydrogen peroxide have indeed turned white. In order to make the hydrogen peroxide more effective, some people add another chemical raw material - anhydrous sodium pyrophosphate.

The reporter learned that it has become an open secret in the industry to use industrial hydrogen peroxide to boil moldy and spoiled chopsticks before selling them white. After the processing of these chemical raw materials, a variety of chemical residues will be produced on disposable chopsticks. Long-term intake of these chemical residues will cause harm to human health. However, the reporter visited more than 30 chopsticks of various sizes in Huaihua, Hunan and Yifeng, Jiangxi. Everywhere I went, no one disinfected the chopsticks.

Do disposable chopsticks have excessive residue? Are sanitary tableware actually unsterilized

As early as 2005, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and the National Standards Administration jointly issued regulations on disposable chopsticks. According to national standards, in the use of food additives, only sulfur dioxide is allowed to have certain residues, and the specific residue amounts are strictly limited. However, this standard has long been forgotten by these manufacturers. Even the manufacturers themselves admit that "most of today's disposable chopsticks have excessive residues" and such "hygienic chopsticks are actually very unhygienic."

In this way, the chopsticks went from manufacturers to wholesalers. Some were packaged and wholesaled all over the country, and finally entered small and medium-sized restaurants. Some were wholesaled to some processing plants to be made into disposable tableware. In Huaihua, Hunan, the reporter met Ma Liansen, a wholesaler that supplies tableware processing factories. According to him, tableware brands such as Geelylai, Qiu, and Tepu all use his chopsticks. The chopsticks are sterilized by the tableware factory after entering the factory.

In this way, disposable chopsticks that have not been sterilized by anyone finally appear in front of us as sterilized tableware.