43. Does plastic cause heart disease?

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one-sided stories. In this episode, we will discuss how mobile phones are collected. Does plastic cause heart disease? Is the wrapping around butter rubbish or not? And I have a question about why free compostable bags have holes in. I'm James Piper, author of the rubbish book, and I'm joined by Robbie Stanforth, my far from rubbish friend. Good morning, Robbie. Hey James. Hello, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Yeah, really good. Excited for another episode. I think the title I'm definitely intrigued by.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

I think it's our first health one. I mean, I guess we've sort of talked about do we eat microplastics, but we haven't really talked about the health of them and we need to do a bit more on that. Yeah, no, definitely. I went into Sports Direct this week. I needed a backpack. Oh, okay. Right. And it Sports backpack for hiking or something, is it? Swimming gear, yeah. Ah. And uh I went and bought this backpack, and the lady said, uh, would you like a reusable bag with that? Oh, yeah. And I thought you just made it onto the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Any irony in that, or did she realize what she said?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Uh yeah, she did then a bag for your bag, I think she said after that. So I think afterwards she realised, but certainly in the initial throes of it, I think it was a serious question. She actually wanted to know if I wanted a bag, but there we go. We have now had a few weeks in this country, particularly, of some pretty significant cyber attacks. And you're probably thinking, what's this got to do with sustainability? I can make all news about sustainability.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I'm looking forward to this one.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

It's like what's it, the Kevin Bacon number, you know, six degrees of separation. It's like there's a cyber attack, which meant all the computers overheated, which meant this had to happen. You know, that's basically how I roll. It's how can I connect this to sustainability so I get to talk about the news? Well, this one actually is relevant. I was actually in an MS on the first day of this cyber attack, because MS is who it's kind of hit the most, right? And they were, I just bought all my shopping and I was in the queue, in this very long queue. I couldn't understand why it was so long. So yes, I now know that MS were under a pretty significant cyber attack. Co-op was in a similar position, I think, at the moment. I every time I'm in co-op at the moment. I've had to stop going to co-op is the truth. I'm going to Tesco now because there's no food in my local co-op. There's no fresh produce. Why? Because they've also been hit by their cyber attack. None of them can order food from their suppliers. Oh my gosh, really? It's that significant. Which brings me nicely onto my sustainability angle. Here we go. Okay, we're getting there. So the reason it caught my eye from a sustainability perspective was an article from the BBC about this, and they would talk about Green Court, who are one of the big suppliers to most of the supermarkets. They do like sandwiches, rolls, wraps.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, they're massive, aren't they, in the sort of fast-moving food type stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, now this BBC article, I'm just going to read some quotes directly from it, and you tell me if this is a good enough sustainability angle. So the boss of Greencore has said it has ramped up deliveries by a fifth to make sure there is enough food for the bank holiday weekend. So this was May Day, beginning in May. Okay. This is the boss quoted, the CEO. In the absence of having all the systems speaking to each other, you revert to how it was 25 years ago, and that means back to pen and paper. Greencourt is now sending more food to stores than they did over Christmas. They're a massive customer for us, and we're trying to flood them with products to help them. With the challenges of the system, we don't have intricate forecasting that we would have previously had, so we're just making sure they've got everything they need and some more, said the CEO of Green Court, Dalton Phillips.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Wow. And this is to try and appease people like you who are saying there's no food on the shelves. This is their response.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I feel guilty, yeah. Well, uh this is for MS. Obviously, co-op are later, they're uh they've been hit by the cyberattack later, so this is probably where they're heading as well. And so what's happened is the suppliers to these supermarkets can't actually use their systems to forecast anymore. They're just saying send loads of food and then send some more. And the fact that in I was just astonished really that there's this BBC article where they're literally saying words like, we're sending more to MS than we did at Christmas, and they're a massive customer for us, we're trying to flood them with products and then some more. Crazy. And they don't once mention in this article anything about food waste, potential issues with doing that, sustainability. That's just not part of the article. The whole thing is just this is great for customers, they'll be able to get their wraps as they need it.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So we're gonna see lots of those reduced stickers then, and if not, maybe some of their charity partners like Fair Share who redistribute food, uh, you know, waste food from supermarkets might benefit from this. But yeah, let's hope it doesn't just end up in a general waste bin and not eaten.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Additions and corrections. So we've had a big DRS move this week. We've had, we're obviously recording this a couple of weeks after this news, but we've had the DMO set up, which is the deposit management organisation. So, as we've said many times before, DRS is set to go live in October 2027, whether I like it or not, and it needs someone to run it. And the DMO is the organisation that will run it. They're appointed for notably appointed for England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Just notice that Wales was missing that, because Wales are obviously keen to keep glass in their DRS, which means they have to do their own thing. So we'll talk about that definitely in the future. Just reflecting on the DMO, the website says they're going to be business led and not for profit, and certainly that board suggests that. So the board is Tesco, Liddle, Coca-Cola, Shepley Spring, Radna Hills, Euro Pacific Partners, Heineken and Co-op. So it's the manufacturers, the brewers, and the retailers who are who are part of that system and leading that DMO, which I guess is quite interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Gosh, they've been working hard in the scenes for the last couple of years trying to make this thing work and stand up an organization. It's really not easy to collaborate when your competitors like Tesco and Liddell, like Coca-Cola and Radna Hills. So it's really great news that they've uh managed to find a way to actually stand this thing up and get things moving.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

You said in the scenes there. What does that mean? That's like that's not behind the scenes. They haven't been working behind the scenes, they've been working in the scenes.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

So we all know working in the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

What does that even mean? I love it. Working in the scenes.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I didn't realise I said that. I did mean behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

It's early in the morning. And I guess the main thing that's going to be interesting with the DRS, which is just an interesting thing that happens with legislation like this, where you're disconnecting kind of market and you're essentially creating something that is well, it's just completely taken out of the market. Is you're taking waste that's got economic value and you're giving it to an organization, whatever that however that runs, you know, the DMO will run the scheme so they will decide where the waste goes. Because obviously, one of the key things is if you're separating the waste out into its own bin, a deposit bin, it needs to go somewhere for recycling. And you and certainly when they were developing this in Scotland, it was going to be a single recycler, it was going to be Biffer that was doing it, that's right, isn't it? So, yeah, the main question that we have at the moment, and that we're going to be interested to see what the DMO does, is how do you set up the transfer of waste? Who owns it when it enters the recycling stream? Is it in a competitive landscape or is it just going to a single partner? Because obviously that changes significantly how drinks are collected from household if we don't use the deposit system.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, no, that's absolutely like correct. And I suppose, well, we'll wait and see what the actual impact is, won't we? Like, we won't know for a while yet until it goes live.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Oh yeah, we'll talk about DRS again. And Julian, actually from Coca-Cola, is one of the people on the board, and I know he'd be quite keen to come onto the podcast to talk about the DMO DRS. So yeah, we're having a we might plan that in for a future episode. Our interviews are getting booked up, I have no idea when that'll be.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Gosh, there's so many interesting people to talk about. Do you know what my first question to Julian's gonna be though? Go on. Why did you call it UK DMO? It's the most literally titled organisation ever, but if you type into Google UK DMO, it'll come up with a department of uh governments like Treasury or whatever, and it's UK debt management office. And I wonder how much debt they're gonna have to manage uh when they're trying to get those fees into the DMO for all the various producers of soft drinks.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, don't give yourself an acronym that's already taken. It's crazy. Just very quickly, I was having a listen back to episode 42, which is where we talked about the recycling of print cartridges, and I guess I just noticed no one's written in about this. This is more my own observation. We didn't really talk about that difference between the cost of a printer versus cost of ink. We sort of touched on it, but you know, in my mind, we should have laboured the point a bit more, but some people do, and I know people who do this, they their ink runs out in their printer, so they throw out the printer because it's cheaper to buy a new printer than it is to get ink. And what? I think we'll talk about this another day because I really want to cover, you know, the situations where we end up with like an item that becomes disposable but shouldn't be disposable. We've sort of touched on it with vapes. Let's do it again and talk about printers, and I'll dig out some stats on this because I reckon this happens loads. And the more we can get in cartridges recycled and the cheaper we can get in cartridges, the better. We'd like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurity, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organization looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurety.com. And the best thing you can do to help us grow and help people find us is to leave us a review. We really don't want to labour this point too much, but it is important. So we're just going to mention it again, and I think Robbie might have a review of the week for us.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Oh gosh, yeah. Just scanning through so many good ones. How about this one from T.S. Hobbs? This was written recently. Uh oh, end of last month. Thought-provoking and entertaining in equal measure. This is a firm favourite podcast now. I work in the industry and every episode provides talking points for the working week.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

You could find us on Discord. The link is in our show notes. On social media, we're at rubbishpodcast. Our email is talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com. And everything, including the link tree with all the links of things we're discussing, can be found in our show notes.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Yeah, and if listeners have got anything that's like that printer ink cartridge example where you actually buy the thing, the big thing, is cheaper than the refill bits, the cartridge. Give us some examples, and uh that just helps me not have to do so much research. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Rubbish process. There was one other thing that came up on Discord other than in cartridges that we haven't covered, which was mobile phones. So, Robbie, how are mobile phones collected?

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah, well the first thing to say is that they're waste electricals. You know, they're obviously an electronic device, they're covered by uh various waste and recycling legislation. And really they would just be described as fast tech because people are upgrading their phones every couple of years, some people every year. So, as always, a shout out to the Recycle Your Electricals uh website for where you can go to just recycle any electrical device. But more pertinently for mobile phones, and I think this is what the question really was and why people wanted to know about it, is because there's lots of these commercial options where you can get cash for your phone. And we're not talking like 50p to a pound as we were for those inkjet cartridges a couple of weeks ago. We're talking about like tens of pounds, maybe even hundreds of pounds if you've got a relatively new phone. So these are companies like Mazuma Mobile, Back Market, Envirophone, Music Magpie, those are sort of the top ones. And all of those operate these trade-in schemes. So you can literally you don't have to upgrade and buy a new mobile, although you can with some of them. You can just get cash for your phone. We're going to talk next week in the recycling process about the data wiping that all of these organizations do. You know, they have a way to wipe the device. But in terms of you taking responsibility, when you're dropping them off somewhere to be collected or you're posting them back, it's really important that you disconnect all of your personal data. Now, you might have an issue if you've not the phone won't turn on or the battery's not working or charging or whatever. But if you can, you do have a working mobile. I I'm not going to take you through exactly how you wipe a phone here. We haven't quite got enough time, but it's a very relatively straightforward process. You can follow guides on YouTube to uh to basically make sure that all of your personal data is not stored on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Yeah, and we did have some questions about how a phone is data wiped if the battery runs out. So if you if your battery just doesn't work, what do you do with the phone? So I guess we'll cover that next week because that will be something that happens when it gets to the recycler.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, so the spoiler alert is you can still recycle it, don't worry. It's really uh wipe your phone if it turns on and stuff so that you can be doubly sure. But there is some security that these companies give to make sure that your data doesn't get lost. So those are kind of the commercial options. Obviously, another option is to return your phone to factory settings and just sell it uh in the open market. You see lots of these things go on eBay, uh lots of them are like seller refurbished, they would come via some of these companies and come back onto the market. But you personally can just have your own eBay store, sell your phone on, uh, especially if it's relatively new. You you will probably get the most money for it if you're doing that rather than sending it back to these commercial companies. But there are also charities that you can donate to. The big charities like British Heart Foundation and Oxfam both have schemes for uh taking mobile phones uh and and generating uh money for the charity out of them. But one charity that I wanted to call out, we had Alex from Hubbub on on one of the early episodes, is their scheme with O2 called Community Calling. And basically what they do is they redistribute old mobile phones. So if you've got a smartphone, it has to be a smartphone, not uh one of the old school ones with buttons, so like an iPhone or an Android phone. And it doesn't have a crack screen or back, so it's working front and back, and that it holds charge, so that's a really important thing. And if you've got the charger, you can send that with it too. They will take that back from you and they'll redistribute those to people who need them. So far they've redistributed 20,000 phones, they've been re-homed, and they work with local councils and community groups to try and find uh people who are in need. And just like all the commercial options, they also have they they recommend you data wipe it yourself or you you take all your personal data off, but they do also uh do it in a commercial fashion, they data wipe it so all your data's safe. But yeah, we'll talk more about the data wiping next week and what happens to your phones after they're collected.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Trash talk. So today's question is Does plastic cause heart disease? It's a big question.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

The bigger question for me is how much science is this gonna involve and am I gonna get lost in it just?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

I tell you what, some of these papers they're incomprehensible. I'm I'm reading I'm like, I've got a biology degree and I'm having to they're just the word why don't people just write papers that say plastic rather than polymer? Why don't people just write papers in simple English? They're so hard to read. Anyway, I've done the hard work so you don't have to. So this is a story that has been reported worldwide quite recently, so end of April, that plastics are causing a substantial increase in deaths from heart disease. As I said, we haven't really covered a lot around health news, but it's all in the plan, and you know, the microplastics on the brain story we're we're looking into, and there's lots and lots of interesting stories that come out around plastic. This is a very specific one around heart disease and a very specific chemical that we're going to talk about. It comes from a scientific study which was published at the end of April in e-Biomedicine, it's part of a Lancet, called phthalate exposure from plastics and cardiovascular disease, global estimates of attributable mortality and years life loss. It could be simpler.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Those are all words that I understand, but put them together and I'm getting a bit lost here. So basically what they're saying is uh exposure to plastics, will it uh increase mortality and make you lose years into your life? Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Sort of. Yeah, that is the English. Even that is like a little bit too simple. So it was actually a specific chemical. We're gonna come on to this, but it's a specific chemical, not anti plastic, that is associated with hundreds of thousands of deaths.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Uh okay, so it comes from plastic. Well, you're getting to this.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

I'm gonna get to this. It gets added to plastic. Oh. Okay. So this chemical is well known. There's been lots of reports about it in the past, and this report specifically got lots of media coverage. I'm not sure if you guys saw it, but there was lots of discussion about it. And partly that was because of the numbers. They were saying like 350,000 deaths, which is far bigger than reports that have come before it. Partly that'll be the reason people are are writing more about it. So the authors are a group of researchers at New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. And let's just talk about cardiovascular disease, first of all. So heart disease. Why is it so important to research? It's the leading cause of death globally, and actually I found it was the leading cause of premature death in 146 countries for men and 98 countries for women. So it's a very significant reason for people dying. And over time for CVD, so cardiovascular disease, deaths have declined, and that's through addressing key risks like high blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity, unhealthy diet, and smoking. They have started to increase in recent years, and there is a thought that plastic is potentially a new kind of risk factor for CVD. So we're going to say C V D throughout this because it's much easier. So when we say C V D it's cardiovascular disease. So first up, what is the chemical this study was looking at? And in the title they mentioned phthalate exposure from plastic. And I was just wondering, Robbie, whether you recognise the word phthalate. No. It is a word you have struggled with many times when describing what PET stands for.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Oh yeah, pteropathalate.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

And you're getting it wrong now? Yes, PET stands for polyethylene, pterophthalate. And phthalates is basic the actual phthalate we're talking about today, it's a low look at this. Are you ready for this? Is simple English? This is what it says in the report. Phthalates are low molecular weight monoesters made from orthophthalic acid. PET is a high molecular weight polyester made from pterophalic acid. Couldn't be simpler. So I mean, basically, phthalates are a big group of chemicals that potentially impact our health. They could lead to infertility, they could impair development. It's just worth noting that PET actually doesn't contain them, even though it's in the name of PET. Phthalate is a group of chemicals, and pterophthalate is something different. So pterophalic acid is what PET contains, and it's actually different. It just all uses the same sort of words. So the specific phthalate we are talking about today is DEHP. That's its acronym, and it stands for DI2 ethyl exyl thylate, which is why we're sticking with D H D E H P.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Jeez, how many of these tricky words have you got coming up, James? I'm really enjoying this.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Okay, but we're keeping it easy by saying DEHP. It's been available commercially since the 1930s, and about three to four million tons is produced annually, so this is a significant chemical. Now, this chemical, DEHP, is added to one type of plastic primarily, and that plastic is PVC. Ooh, boo. Yeah, we don't like PVC very much. Now there are lots of people who love PVC. You know, it's used in pipes in our houses, it's used in lots of places, and in some applications it can be very good. But let's just talk a little bit about PVC. It's tricky to recycle. We've talked about this because it's got chlorine in it. It actually uses a lot less oil than normal plastic. So the way it's made is a mix of oil and salt. And that's what gives it the chloride, and it's actually 57% salt and 43% oil. So PVC is actually not in if you were trying to reduce the amount of oil you'd be using, PVC is not a bad plastic. I think the sodium, because obviously salt is sodium chloride, isn't it? I think the sodium comes out as caustic soda when they make PVC, which is used in soap. So the byproducts of PVC actually are useful as well. And in Europe, over 400,000 tonnes per year of packaging is made of PVC. 80% of that is rigid film, 15% is cling film. Don't buy PVC cling film, we've talked about that. You can avoid that very easily in supermarkets. Now most cling films in the UK will be non-PVC, and 3% are closures, so things like lids. Around 185,000 tons in Europe is used in food contact applications. So 185,000 tons of PVC is used in food contact. Now that is actually not a lot of packaging. We're going to come on to that. PVC is not used that much.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, and it's decreasing over time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Yeah, absolutely. Now one of the problems with PVC is you have to add chemicals to it to make it usable. Okay, so PVC has a very weird molecular structure and it needs different types of chemicals. And actually on the British Plastics Federation website, who I think we mentioned last week, we were talking about the British Plastics Federation and the fact that they have quite a lot of detailed information on different types of plastic. On their website, they actually mentioned that in some flooring applications, so like tiles, plastic tiles, less than 25% of the floor could be PVC, with the rest made up of chemicals that have been added to it. So just 25% of that floor is PVC. 75% of it is chemicals. That's crazy. Yeah, and that's the problem with PVC. The chlorine is one problem. The other problem is to make it usable, you have to add chemicals to it. And some of those chemicals that are being added are quite controversial. We're going to talk about one today. And if you're using that in food contact, potentially harmful to health.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Okay, and is this sort of what the report is aiming at?

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yes, this is where it's heading. So we're not talking about microplastics here. This is not what we're talking about. We're talking about chemicals that are added to plastics. Now the UN reports that over 13,000 chemicals are associated with plastic. So 13,000 chemicals are associated with plastic use. Around 7,000 of those have been analysed, looked at to see whether they affect us. And about 3,200 of those have one or more hazardous properties.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Wow. So when it says only 7,000 have been analysed, there's a lot of chemicals associated with plastic that are yet to be analysed.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Yeah, and half of the ones that have been analysed are found to have some form of hazardous property. Now that's not really a surprise. You take a chemical, it's probably quite hazardous. I think one of the things that's quite interesting here is most of it will be in quantities that don't reach our daily limits. So if you want to go back to the black plastic episode, which is episode 26, you know, we talked about that chemical that's might exist in our black plastic utensils. Reality is we're not going to get nearly enough in any of our cooking for that to be a problem. So some of these plastics will have chemicals in that on paper look really bad, and you can write news articles about how dangerous they are, but none of them are in quantities that could harm us.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, and I suppose this is the complexity around plastic, isn't it? It's like it's not just one thing, it's about the chemicals that are used. It's a very complicated synthetic product that just requires a lot of science and investigation to understand what the implications are.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that's really interesting with plastic is one of the biggest markets for chemicals is stabilizers. And the stabilizer market could be worth $6.5 billion by 2033. I don't want to go into detail on this, we're gonna do a separate trash talk on it, but just have a think about that. Stabilizers are designed to stop plastic breaking down. Why would that be a massive market if plastic doesn't break down?

SPEAKER_01 26:15

I thought they were designed to help children ride bicycles.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah, that's the $6.5 billion market. No, no, but that is exactly like it's just worth noting that plastic does break down. Natural plastic breaks down with UV, oxidation, thermal degradation. So they have to add stabilizers to it to stop it breaking down, not to help it ride a bike. And so if you're whatever you're replacing plastic with it with, you also have to add stabilizers to. So I guess that's just an observation that you know it's not as simple as plastic doesn't break down in the environment, therefore, we should use something else. Well, the thing you're using also probably needs to be stabilized so that it doesn't break down, which is why you have like liners and coffee cups.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Gosh, you get into such a massive loop of like needing to do the next thing so that it performs the right function.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Absolutely. So the chemical we're talking about today is DEHP. So what is DEHP? Now, what it's used for in PVC, and the reason it's added to PVC is to make it flexible. Okay. Okay, now DEHP is an endocrine disruptor, so it can interfere with our hormones basically. That's what can happen. And in theory, it can cause inflammation in the heart arteries, and there is a thought that it can contribute to obesity, which could then also cause cardiovascular disease. So DHP is a chemical, it's a bit nasty, it's an endocrine disruptor, it will affect our bodies, definitely. It's just are we how much are we getting and where's it coming from? Is that is the real question, not is DEHP a problem. I think most countries acknowledge that DEHP is a problem. Its most common use in this country, because we dad actually don't use much PVC, its most common use is actually in medical environments and it'll be used in things like medical blood bags. So think about a medical blood bag, you know, it's going to be flimsy. That the reason it's flimsy is DEHP. Um, IV tubes, so the reason they bend is DEHP. Catheters, disposable gloves. If they're made of PVC, they probably contain DEHP.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Gosh, this makes it seem likely that it could get into human health, doesn't it, if it's involved or used in trying to keep people healthy. There's some sort of irony there, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

That's a very good point. I think we'll be discussing that very shortly. But according to the UK government, it makes medical devices easier to use, less likely to cause damage to tissue, and is more comfortable for the patient. Okay, so what's the alternative? I don't know, are we going back to glass tubing? You know, that's pretty grim. And so that's the problem that the government is sort of saying actually it's the lesser of all the evils, and we know there might be some risks with it, but whatever you replace it with is going to be worse. And I did find, I think it was on the government website they would talk about the fact that we're willing to move away from DEHP, we're willing to move away from PVC if people can find something that's better.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah. At the moment it's a necessary evil.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah. In our homes we can find it in things like garden hoses. If you think about the flexibility of a garden hose, some of our piping, shower curtains, things like that. Just any flexible plastic made of PVC, it probably contains this chemical.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Okay, so it's in pipes, but is it in James Piper? Awful. We'll cut that.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

DHP. Now, the but one of the challenges with DHP is it's sorry, we're gonna get really sciencey in this episode, but it's held in PVC through a non-covalent bond. So it's not formed a chemical bond with the PVC. What that basically means is it can leach out. So it's not like stuck to the PVC, it's just in there. And so when you have things like oily and fatty foods packed in PVC that's flexible, DEHP has been found to leach out of the packaging and into the oily and fatty foods. Now this will also happen in a blood bag. Now the medical community seems to acknowledge that this is a good thing because the DEHP leaches into the bloods and it itself acts as a stabilizer and preserves blood. So it actually allows the blood bag to be used for longer. But it's because the DEHP is leaching out that that is a that that happens. Wow, okay. So that's a summary. We're basically in this position where we've got a chemical called DHP. PVC is a plastic, needs chemicals added to it to make it work. This specific chemical is used to make plastic flexible, so it is necessary in certain environments, mostly medical, and therefore it could leach into us, it could affect our health, but it's sort of seen as a necessary evil because the alternatives are worse and could cause more deaths and damage. So that's the background. In terms of this report, the report was looking at 2018. So it's a few years old now in terms of the data, it's just the way these things work, because that what they're doing is they were tracking the urine of people from 2008, tracking how much DEHP they had in their urine, and then in 2018 they were checking to see if anyone had died from cardiovascular disease, and then trying to make an assumption on how many people had died basically. Now they use some really complex modelling to predict, I mean, honestly, it was unreadable to predict how the deaths would have happened, and they tried to estimate it across 200 countries, and what they estimated was that approximately 350,000 deaths were due to DEHP exposure amongst the 55 to 64 year olds across the globe. And that worked out at about 13% of all deaths from heart disease amongst adults age 55 to 64.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Wow, that sounds pretty significant then.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Yeah, I mean it was uh if these stats are true, it is very significant. Now, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Pacific actually accounted for 73% of the deaths. So there was this very unfair SKU towards kind of developing nations over developed nations. And the report actually said this was trending towards the fact that there's very different population sizes, specifically within the 55 to 64 year old age group. So in those regions you're more likely to see more people in the 55 to 64 age group, so they're gonna have a higher percentage of deaths linked to TEHP. So that's all that makes sense. They actually called out India specifically in the report and said India has a rapidly expanding plastic industry and faces substantial phthalate exposure risk due to plastic waste and the extensive use of commonly DEHP inclusive plastics, such as PVC in manufacturing of consumer goods.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

Okay, so they're headed for more exposure just by the fact that it's it's expanding very quickly the use of it.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Yeah, and we know that's true. Like this country, you are way less likely to find PVC, particularly in packaging. We just don't use it as much anymore. You go to another country, I mean I've been to other countries where I've been given a water bottle and it's a PVC bottle, and you just think that is very unusual. We don't experience that. So it definitely happens, and there's definitely a move towards all countries starting to move away from this plastic, or at least move away from it in food contact applications. So I guess why it why we're sort of touching on it, but why is the reporting perhaps not quite right? Because the reporting, if you look at the UK reporting, it's very like this plastic's gonna kill you, you know, or this plastic's gonna give you heart disease. And that that's a very, very emotive headline that potentially isn't true. So I guess the first thing is that all these reports, and I I mean I've dug into so many of them, they all build off each other. So even this report was built off previous reports, which itself was built off previous reports. So everyone sort of takes data from one place that was intended to do one thing, and then applies it to their report that's doing something else, and then they apply that data to their report, and you end up with this kind of situation where you've got so far removed from the initial data that it's difficult to know how true that is. And so that's something that happens a lot with plastic. People go, take my microplastic example, where someone went, Well, this is the size of microplastic in the ocean, so we'll apply that to drinking water. And it's just taking one person's report and applying it to your thesis without thinking, well, actually, drinking water's filtered, so you're not going to get a massive piece of plastic in it.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Yeah, no, it's it's uh I suppose there's some naivety in how the data's being used.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Yeah, so the research relied, as I say, on estimates from previous, and actually they relied on their own earlier analysis as well, which I think was specific to the US. So again, they were taking the US and going, can we apply this to 200 countries? Different countries have completely different cardiovascular risks, completely different, like smoking levels, exercise levels, obesity levels. So it's very difficult to take one country and go, can we turn that into 200 countries? Now, all of this is typically how global disease is modelled, but it's just worth saying that doesn't make it reliable.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, I mean it's so tricky to just do primary data on everything, every medical issue that we need to research, isn't it? So you can you can kind of understand why they have to model it in this way, but you're right, it doesn't necessarily make those inferences correct.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah, and last week, let's talk about the UK specifically. Last week we mentioned that PVC makes up less than 1% of plastic that's used in the UK. In consumer plastic packaging, this is actually around 0.2%. Okay, it's tiny. And in 2018, PVC was on the list of RAP's eight problematic plastics. So to be honest, it's been phased out because of this as well. You know, we've got RAP saying these are the eight plastics to ban, PVC is one of them in terms of it in packaging, in food packaging, and packaging in general. And so now we're down to 0.2% of our packaging being made of PVC. The media would have you feel very differently. We'll sort of touch on this in a second, but you know, they would have you feel very differently about this because obviously they want a headline that says plastic might kill you. And the main issue, and you've sort of touched on this, Robbie, is association, not causation. Because it's used in medical applications primarily, and that is where you are most likely to have it leach into you, you're probably already undergoing treatment for things like cardiovascular disease. If you need a blood bag or an IV tube or something else, you're probably statistically more likely to have a cardiovascular incident. I would say that with some degree of certainty. And so what we end up with here is a report that's trying to estimate something that actually is quite difficult to estimate because we just don't know whether that's a cause or whether it's an association. And if we take countries where PVC packaging use is higher than UK, so higher than 0.2%, again, PVC is more likely to package junk food or foods that are ultra-processed, which could cause health issues and obesity. So you are more likely potentially to see in someone who's obese who's eating more junk food using PVC packaging have more DEHP. And so it's always difficult in these reports to go, and therefore DEHP caused these deaths.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Yeah. So CVD has many different causes, of which exposure to DEHP could be one, but you can't discern it from the many sort of other things that might have also caused that cardiovascular disease.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Exactly. Now, what I did to check the reporting on this was I searched plastic heart disease in Google. I did initially search PVC heart disease, but guess what? Didn't get any news. No one's including PVC in their title, they all just say plastic. And it's not even plastic, it's a chemical that's added to plastic. Now that is bad because you've created a plastic that needs a chemical, so I understand why that's like a link, but a lot of the reporting is this plastic will give you a heart disease, and then you have to click through to find out which plastic. And it then talks about a plastic, not a chemical. Of the first a hundred articles I looked at, so I just went through the first a hundred, fifty-seven of them had pictures of food packaging. This is in the UK. 57 of them had pictures of food packaging, and the rest went with something like a blood cell, stethoscope, someone clutching their chest. I did not find one article that used a picture of a blood bag or an IV tube or something where these are actually found. As I say, in the UK, PVC is used in 0.2% of consumer packaging, so it's just so small that you are very unlikely to be getting DEHP from that.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Okay, so it's all part of the kind of general scaremongering broadly around plastic. Although there is some truth to this, and I suppose I mean for me it is news that maybe this stuff shouldn't be used in medical applications, and we need to find a better alternative.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Yeah, so now there's a question of what is the better alternative. So I was thinking about this because the trouble we have here is DEHP is well studied. Okay, so we all know because it's been known for a long time that it's a chemical of concern, it is well studied. The alternatives to DEHP, the other phthalates or something else that could be used to also make plastic flexible, are not well studied.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

So Ah, so it's better the devil you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Well, this is the NHS's view and the government's view, but it's like, okay, well, we could use an alternative to this, but it needs to be also studied and checked because and and this is what's happening in a lot of packaging innovation where people are like, this thing is bad, move to this new thing, but we don't know what impact the new thing has yet. And I think that's quite an important point, actually, when we talk about these chemicals. In terms of it being banned and kind of what people have done around the world, DEHP is not universally banned, but many countries do have restrictions. I'm not going to go through them all, but just to give some examples. Japan was one of the first countries to restrict it in around 2003. It was found in children's toys. I was trying to get some examples of children's toys, and I found a link to an article from the Philippines which shows some people protesting DEHP, and they had a rubber chicken that contained it. So I think that's the kind of vibe. Bendy plastic.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Bendy plastic, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

So the EU and US prohibit it in children's toys in a concentration above 0.1%, which will be the safe level that they've decided, because obviously children's toys could end up being chewed on, and that is one way that it could leach in. The EU are phasing it out of medical devices. I think it's by the 1st of July 2030, and I read that France has already banned it. As I said, the government website, it remains to be seen what the UK is doing on that, but they have said when they find something better they will move away from it. It's found in some cosmetic products, so you know, things like tubes that you might have cosmetics in, and California has some bans coming in on that. Canada has banned it in toys and cosmetics, and it's been on its toxic substance list since 1999. India has started introducing some restrictions in food packaging, but again, this is quite recent, so not reflected in the report. So if this report is done again, I would expect this to be a better result. I would expect there to be fewer deaths associated with DEHP. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Because it's being used less widely, not because its toxicity is less, just because it's getting restricted.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Exactly. Exactly. And as we've said, lots of companies are moving away from PVC and packaging, particularly in Europe. It is seen as a bad material, as a packaging item. It's a good material in lots of ways. PVC, you know, it's quite low cost to produce. It's it can be very receptive to chemicals, which can be really useful for things like piping, where you're trying to get a very specific type of plastic into a space. It makes loads of sense. I think in packaging, it's just unnecessary. And so I think we should be moving away from PVC and packaging, and that's certainly where it's heading. Yeah, so the report did talk a lot about the differences between developed and developing countries, and they were saying actually reductions in PVC in higher income countries do mean that developing countries are more likely to be exposed to the chemical. So in the report, they said overall regions containing a higher proportion of populations from low and middle-income countries bear the brunt of the burden, while regions containing more high-income countries face less exposure to DEHP and thus less mortality. They did acknowledge the trend is not seen universally, and each region's profile is slightly different, depending on population percentiles, population size of 55 to 64 year olds. But there is definitely that difference between lower and middle income countries and high income countries. So, how do we wrap this up? It's a big topic, hey? Hopefully that's been a useful summary. It is very clear that we need more research in this space, and we need continuing research to show if some of these bans and restrictions are working. It is impossible to do proper trials into this because it's unethical to give people doses of DEHP. So we couldn't do trials to actually check this report's validity. The New York Times, I did find, had some ideas on improving research here. They felt you could take a large sample of people, measure the DEHP. And then follow their health for years and implement strategies to reduce exposure and see what that does, which I thought was quite a nice idea. You'd create a control group and then get them to reduce their exposure and compare them to the general population. It is my personal opinion that we should not use PVC for food contact packaging. It has chemicals added to it. It has to have chemicals added to it for it to work. Some of those chemicals we know what they do, some of them we don't. In the words of a Zero Waste Europe report, restrictions on use of PVC in food contact packaging rather than individual chemicals should be prioritised.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah, that sounds sensible.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

So what can you do? You're listening to this, you're thinking, oh my god, that's a lot of data, lots of detail, let's distill it down into something really simple. I would be avoiding PVC and packaging. Check what your packaging is made of, check what plastic type, and avoid PVC if you can. Buy non-PVC Klingfilm. And when you read a report that says plastic is bad for your health, as always, dig into what type of plastic, in what context, how will the harm get to you, and how can you mitigate it? Because it's very easy to walk around the street saying, Oh, have you seen that report that plastic creates heart disease? Let's stop using plastic. And it's much harder to go, oh yes, and that report said this type of plastic in these environments in this way, and therefore I'm going to reduce that. Because that's the only thing we can do.

SPEAKER_01 45:28

Or alternatively, wait for James to do all the research on a podcast and listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah, tell your friends and family about talking rubbish. Lovely. We'll have a lot more health episodes, I'm sure, because I do, while these take a long time to research, I do find them extremely fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah, I mean we once used lead in pipes, didn't we? So these things are coming up all the time where we're uh innovating, using new materials, they seem fit for purpose, and then once the research gets done, you realise that actually there are some health implications, so more to come.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Rubbish or not. So this is a personal rubbish or not from my house in Bristol, which was the wrapping around a block of butter. And this is because we got through our block the other day and we had the the bit of paper, you know, it feels like paper, and I thought surely that's recyclable. And Ellie pointed out to me it said, don't recycle on it. And that has led me down quite the road of discussing butter wrapping with lots of people. So what do you reckon, Robbie, rubbish or not? And I've just realized I've given you the answer.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Yeah, well, given it says don't recycle on the label, I trust the label and I'm gonna say rubbish, but is that right?

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Uh yeah, I think so. Uh so there's a g there's a few things going on here, and it turns out the wrapping around a block of butter is way more complicated than I expected. Generally they're a mix of paper, plastic, aluminium. As always, you need some form of liner between the paper and the butter, so they'll put a coating in there. Hopefully it's not got DEHP in it. Unlikely. Unlikely to be PVC. But I'm glad you're learning. You're taking your learnings through to your next section. So generally a mix of paper, plastic, aluminium, and you need a coating, especially with fatty things like butter, you know, that that's going to cause a problem with the paper. So you need something to make it greaseproof essentially. There are some that are just made of greaseproof paper.

SPEAKER_01 47:31

Oh, yeah, I've seen those. Sometimes more upmarket ones that make them look quite fancy with that greaseproof paper, like that you buy at the butchers and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Yeah, that's it. And I found some councils. I found Cambridge Council said you could just add that to your food waste bin. So it's definitely worth checking. They were saying if it tears and it's not metallic, then you can put it in your food waste bin. So that was really nice. So definitely worth having a look. A, have you got a butter wrapping that tears and is non-metallic? And then what will your counsel allow you to do with it? Because in theory, that could be sent off for composting if your council accepts some cardboard or paper in the compost. This is where a lot of innovation is happening. It's like coffee cups, the wrap around butter. So in May last year, so 2024, Audi actually rolled out a recyclable butter wrap. So this was a paper-based wrap, which they said would remove more than 10 tons of non-recyclable packaging per year.

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Okay, and presumably they just got the coating down to a certain level so it could be treated like paper.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, I actually couldn't find what it was made of. It drives me mad when you get these press releases. People say, Oh, we've got a recyclable thing, and you've got to actually check, is it recyclable? and they don't tell you what it's made of. So I have looked at some other companies which I'll come on to in a second, but I th I do genuinely believe this is a difference between recyclable and do recyclers want it. So Audi have obviously developed a material that is recyclable, as in its paper, and maybe with a bit of a liner, maybe not. You know, whatever liner they've used, obviously they've decided can make it recycled. But you've now got a piece of paper that's covered in butter and covered in fat, and that's the equivalent of having a pizza box that's just drenched in grease. You don't want so they wouldn't be happy with that, the recyclers. I'm not sure about this whole making them recyclable because recyclers don't want them, they don't want things covered in butter. Uh so I've reached out to Kevin from Pro Ampac, we both know Kevin, and he was explaining to me, because I said to him, why doesn't everyone just use greaseproof paper if there's an opportunity to compost it? And he said one of the challenges is to get the fold. So with the packaging around butter, you've got to get that really neat fold to get it all to close properly. Oh, yes, and stay closed. And a lot of the butter companies have quite old machines that need like a bit of metal in them to m to get the fold properly. So that was just quite interesting. It's quite tough for just paper to do that. Now they have developed a pack which he actually texted me about this morning because originally he said they had a PLA liner, but he did text me this morning saying actually their material has no coating. The barrier has been achieved by compressing the fibres. Oh, okay. So they've compressed the fibers enough that it's holding the butter in. Again, this doesn't this leads to something that I guess in theory is recyclable, but probably isn't wanted because it's covered in fat. So again, theirs is more likely to go down a compostable route if it's just paper. So it's worth noting a lot of the liners that people use, so silicon, wax, they're all red in the recycling assessment methodology, which we're going to discuss next week. So lots of people will be looking for a solution for things like butter wrap, things that are made of paper that are traditionally covered in silicon or wax. They will be looking for other things that get them out of that high and expensive cost in EPR. And Kevin did, because he phoned me yesterday to have a chat about this, and he did leave me with a thought that he was like, actually, something like Knopla, this is a perfect application for their coating because they've got a seaweed-based coating that is perfect in like an oily environment. They use it to hold oil pipettes, don't they oil it in pipettes? So, really good thought that this is a classic case for that kind of technology. Rubbish question. So we had Kay on WhatsApp, and Kay was asking why the three compost bags, and she sent me a picture of ones from Waitrose, specifically around home delivery, when they send fruit, veg, meats, things like that, have little holes in them. It makes them completely unsuitable for use as caddy liners in compost bins. It's a really good point. So often when we get delivery and they say this is a compostable bag, they've punched holes in it. And she was wondering why they do that.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Oh, that's frustrating, isn't it? So those bags basically can only be used again as a as a shopping bag, not as a caddy liner. Is that what she's saying?

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Yeah, basically, but it's just going to leak stuff out, isn't it? If you're putting liquid in your food waste, you're just going to get a messy bin. So it would be better for them not to have holes in. Yeah, so the holes in the bags are there for three main reasons. Ventilation, to allow the product to compress without the bag bursting, and to prevent suffocation. So ventilation obviously is to stop moisture and mould, and you need to allow products to compress if you're stacking them so that they don't burst and you have loads of food waste. The suffocation one was the one I was most interested in, because we were always told that as kids, weren't we? That you know, there's holes in carrier bags to stop use. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

There was even a little sign on the bag itself, wasn't there? Like some little symbol I remember, and like a couple of words on the 90s.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

So I reached out to Ian, friend of the podcast, and our bag correspondent. I'm not sure he wants to be our bag correspondent, but you know, that's his title. Because I just assumed there must be legislation around holes in bags. I assumed there must be like this. Legally you have to have holes to stop suffocation. And Ian came back saying, nope, there's absolutely no legislation. Because the reason because he obviously developed the co-op caddy liners and carrier bags that made out of holes in, so I couldn't quite work it out. It turns out there's no legislation on putting holes in bags. And Ian did make the point that if you were to put a bag over your head, the chance of a hole in the bag landing on your mouth is pretty small. So the best way to protect children is just to keep bags out of reach. Good point? Sure. So I was really surprised because I thought that I assumed this was a requirement. It isn't. And Ian did then give me a lovely aside, which was complete holes shouldn't be punched into bags because the plastic, when it's removed, is hard to control and to handle and could leach into the environment. And they should use C cuts instead, which is where they like half-cut the hole. Okay, so it's like a slice or whatever. So you've yeah, you've got a hole, but the bit of plastic stayed on there, and that stops the plastic leaching. So uh great aside. But yeah, no Great aside. There is no real reason for a home delivery or something that you're packaging in store yourself to have holes, and therefore I would advise that supermarkets stop doing that. They can do it for things like I don't know, pre-packaged stuff where they're like, we're gonna stack it and we're worried about it popping, or we need it to vent so that there's no moisture and mould. But if I'm going into a shop and packing a few peppers or onions or something, I don't need a bag that's got holes in it, and therefore I could then use that as my caddy liner. So I think supermarkets moving away from holes in bags would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Yeah, nope. Sounds agreed. Wow, geez. So that's why there's holes in them, and that's why there shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

Heavy, heavy episode. Hopefully, um hopefully these health ones are okay. I think it's really important for us to get into the data around the health of packaging and and issues that may exist, and uh no bigger issue than heart disease at the moment, so a really good place for us to start.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

No, actually, the last thing we want is kind of doom mongering, so it's nice to kind of talk through. You know, these are a problem, they're just maybe not quite as sensationalised, these DEHPs, as you may be reading the news.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

Yes, but maybe avoid PVC in your packaging. I think that's probably a good idea. You don't need it. So uh thank you all for listening. If as always, if you could leave us a review, we'd be super grateful. And if you enjoy the show, make sure you tell people about us. It really, really helps us, and and we just love seeing loads of people listening. We love all the messages we get, all the contacts, and we we just really appreciate it. As always, we will see you next week. Bye. Bye.