• Find people
• Intranet

News

02/10/2019 - Press release

Our health is increasingly conditioned and at risk from the proliferation of plastics that surround us, especially for food packaging (Press release by Rezero)

Dr. Miquel Porta and his team supervised the results of the analyzes performed on 20 relevant people in our society

It is an initiative with no precedents, 20 relevant people of Catalonia and Balearic Island ask for tackling with urgency the crisis of plastic waste after checking the presence of plastic in its body derived from plasticized food in the entire distribution chain and consumption.

Rezero collected 20 urine samples from 20 participants.Once samples were collected, samples were analyzed from Norwegian Institute of Public Health (www.fhi.no/en), referencelaboratory at international level on the detection of metabolic plastic in human samples. Specifically, it have been analyzed the presence of 27 components related to plastic exposition: 15 phthalates and 12 phenols.

Results have been supervised by Doctor Miquel Porta, professor of Preventive Medicine and health and researcher at IMIM. He informed to all participants the results face to face and corroborated the faces of surprise and the impact of theparticipants: I participated in the campaign thinking that results would be negative.When I recieved the results it was really impact for me as I also try not to usepackaging waste.

The results of the analysis are overwhelming:

• The results of all participants were positive on the detection of these plastic metabolites.
• All 15 phthalates have been detected in each of the 20 participants.
• Five of the 12 phenols analyzed have been detected in each of the 20 participants.
• The average of compounds detected by individual are 21,3.

«Citizenship is exposed daily to a plasticized diet and is not at all aware. The plastic that is currently used in the packaging, transportation and sale of food and drinks contains substances that are migrating to our body and directly affect our health» informs Rosa García, director of Rezero.

Although these substances can be excreted daily, continued exposure to these toxic compounds, many of them endocrine disruptors, is linked to diseases such as hypothyroidism, diabetes, infertility, among others," says the Doctor Miquel Porta.

As a result of the evidence of the affections of the plastic in our own body, the entity has presented the Plastic on the Spotlight campaign (www.salutdeplastic.org) in order to move awareness and continue creating a connected movement with representation of all sectors, geared towards action and putting the solutions towards a zero waste society. It is in this sense that they want to encourage governments and companies to increase their commitments in the field of prevention of disposable plastic waste.

Among the proposals, we want to promote the reduction of the toxicity of consumer products, either by penalizing or, directly, by prohibiting its use; Prioritize reusable products, regulating the sale and distribution of disposable items (such as bags, trays, glasses, tableware and plastic pens); and apply tax measures for disposable and short-term products (plastic bottles or coffee capsules, for example).

«It is not necessary to do long and expensive investigations to see the harmful effect that plastic may have on human health. We must apply the precautionary principle. In the future, surely the doctors will have to recommend to not smoke, not drink and, in addition, zero plastics in the diet ». Dr. Elena Carreras Rosa García, director of Rezero concludes, "We need determined steps towards the regulation of disposable plastic products. We need a new regulatory framework for waste prevention that protects people's health and our right to consume without generating waste".

More news