Plasticizers are one of the plastic additives with the largest production and consumption in the world. China has become the largest production and consumption of plasticizers in Asia. With the improvement of environmental protection consciousness in the world, pharmaceutical and food packaging, daily necessities, toys and other plastic products for the main plasticizer DOP and so on put forward a higher purity and health requirements. However, at present, the main plasticizers produced by domestic enterprises are difficult to meet the requirements of environmental protection in many properties, especially hygiene and low toxicity. The European Union and Russia have imported plastic toys from China found in some plastic toys originating in China were found to contain toxic polyvinyl chloride plasticizer N - a diisononyl phthalate (DINP) and diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP, or DOP).
For a long time plasticizers have been mainly phthalate-based products, but as DOP has become more widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries, people are paying more attention to its toxicity. It has been found that when people enter the blood stored in polyvinyl chloride plastic bags, the presence of DOP products was found in the human body, especially in the lungs.
In 1982 the authoritative U.S. National Cancer Institute on the carcinogenicity of DOP biological identification, its conclusion is: DOP is a carcinogen in rats and mice, can make rodents liver cancer. Thus, the toxicity of DOP has attracted global attention. Although the claim of whether it causes cancer in humans is still debated, due to the potential suspicion of carcinogenicity, all countries have taken appropriate measures. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in accordance with the findings of the National Cancer Institute, has stopped the production of six new phthalates industry, DOP is limited to the use of food packaging in high water content, meat packaging must be used in other non-toxic plasticizer products to replace; the Swiss government has decided to prohibit the use of DOP in children's toys; Germany in the human body hygiene, food related to the ban on all plastic products DOP is banned in all plastic products related to human health and food; Japan has banned DOP in products related to medical devices and limited its application to industrial plastic products.
According to the research results and standards issued by Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea, DOP (DEHP) is more harmful than DOA (DEHA). For example, the European food safety agency EFSA stipulates that the concentration of DEHA in the human body reaches 0.3 mg/kg or more is considered unsafe, while the concentration of DEHP reaches 0.05 mg/kg or more is considered unsafe.DOA and DOP are the plasticizers that are widely used in the domestic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) food cling film. DOP is the plasticizer with the largest dosage, and it is used in a large number of food packaging products. China's PVC cling film is allowed to use the 10 main plasticizers, the first is adipic acid dioctanoic acid (i.e., DEHA, referred to as DOA), followed by three phthalate esters DBP, DOP, DIOP, their toxicity is relatively greater than DEHA. due to the high cost of production of DOA, so most of the domestic PVC cling film manufacturers use DOP, DBP as the main plasticizer, which produces a lot of plasticizer. Plasticizers, so that the production of plastic wrap, especially in meat products with high fat content, or use it to wrap the food heated in the microwave oven, the plasticizer migration into the wrapped food will be more opportunities, potentially harmful to human health. However, it is relatively safer to use it on vegetables, especially on varieties that should be washed before consumption or food preparation.
Despite the international debate over whether DOP is carcinogenic, the potential carcinogenicity of DOP, the international community has begun to take appropriate measures to limit the scope of use of DOP. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to the results of the National Cancer Institute, has stopped the industrial production of six phthalates; the Swiss government decided to ban the use of DOP in children's toys; Germany has banned the use of DOP in the human body, health and food related to all plastic products; in Japan, DOP as a plastics additives are limited to the application of industrial plastic products. The world has accelerated the research and development of non-toxic plasticizer products, especially to speed up the health requirements of the plastic products of the basic application of research. In China, DOP and other plasticizers that have been eliminated by foreign countries still have a large market, and plasticizer manufacturers for the development and promotion of non-toxic new plasticizers has not attracted enough attention. 80% of the plasticizers on the domestic market are DOP, DBP (dibutyl phthalate) and other plasticizers, low price is the most critical factor. The national standard "food containers, packaging materials with additives to use health standards" also DOP as one of the plasticizer varieties can be used for food packaging.
The latest test results from Tongji University show that when cooking oil is packed in plastic buckets, plasticizers that are harmful to the human body will be dissolved in the cooking oil. A scientific research team led by Prof. Shuguang Li of Tongji University's School of Basic Medical Sciences collected test samples of soybean salad oil, blended oil and peanut oil in plastic drums of different brands and different dates of shipment on the market, as well as bulk soybean oil on sale in the market, solid shortening from a fast-food restaurant that fries food, and condensate collected by residents' kitchen range hoods. After measuring these samples, the research team found that almost all brands of edible oils in plastic drums contained dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and dioctyl phthalate (DOP). These two plasticizers are phthalate plasticizers often used in the plastics industry, while bulk soybean oil and solid shortening, which are not contained in plastic containers, contain almost no plasticizers. From this, it is inferred that the plasticizers detected in cooking oil mainly come from its plastic containers. Most of the oils consumed by millions of families in China for three meals a day are purchased from the market in plastic drums. However, the national standards do not include plasticizers in the physical and chemical indicators of cooking oil testing, and there are no provisions and requirements for the content of plasticizers. Due to the lagging standards in China, this is actually only the "tip of the iceberg" of plasticizer pollution. Plasticizers are used in a wide range of pollution area, the number of people affected, more than pesticides, DDT and so on.