BOSTON — Brenda Hampton first came across the toxic industrial compound PFAS after finding it was part of the cocktail of contaminants that tainted the drinking water in her North Alabama community.
Hampton, who believes the contaminated water contributed to kidney problems she and other residents suffer, soon learned the chemicals were found in another source that hit close to home — fast-food wrappers, boxes and plates.
Knowing her three daughters and eight grandchildren ate their share of burgers and fries, she joined the national fight in 2020 to ban PFAS in food packaging.
“Everybody is eating fast food. Fast food is selling everywhere. No one has time to cook anymore,” said Hampton, who teamed with the environmental health advocacy group Toxic-Free Future to spearhead a petition drive last year that collected nearly 75,000 signatures. McDonald’s later announced it would remove PFAS from all its packaging.
Environmental and health groups are pushing dozens of fast-food companies, supermarkets chains and other retail outlets to remove PFAS chemicals from their packaging. Known as “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, they have been used for decades to prevent grease, water and other liquids from soaking through wrappers, boxes and bags.
Opponents of the practice argue the packaging poses a danger to consumers as well as the environment, since the waste ends up in landfills, in compost or is incinerated where the chemicals can leach into groundwater or soil. They contend there are safer alternatives.
Several groups have maintained that many major brands use packaging with PFAS and that testing at times showed extremely high levels.
A 2017 study by the Massachusetts-based nonprofit research organization Silent Spring Institute found PFAS in almost half of paper wrappers and 20 percent of boxes from 27 fast-food outlets. Tests by Toxic-Free Future in 2018 produced similar results. And, this year, Consumer Reports found eight restaurants, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Cava, had packaging that had more than 100 parts per million of fluorine, which indicates likely presence of PFAS.
“One of the concerns is that, especially with the pandemic, we’ve seen just this huge increase in food packaging, delivery, takeout,” said Sheela Sathyanarayana, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Research Institute whose 2021 study found 16 different PFAS chemicals in the breast milk of mothers.
“We have much, much higher potential for exposure to these kinds of chemicals to everybody in the population, not just certain segments of the population,” she said. “Basically eating or drinking is one of the biggest sources of exposure.”
Tom Flanagin, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, said his group supports the Food and Drug Administration’s agreement with several manufacturers to voluntary phase out some PFAS chemicals used in substances applied to food packaging. But his group opposes what he described as “unscientific, ‘one-size-fits-all’ restrictions on the entire class of PFAS chemistries.”
“The mere presence of PFAS does not indicate a health risk,” Flanagin said. “All PFAS are not the same. Individual chemistries have different uses, as well as environmental and health profiles.”
