Plastic slippers were found to contain excessive amounts of plasticizers! How serious are the hazards?

On June 23, the Shenzhen Consumer Council released a comparative test report on plastic slippers:

In terms of chemical safety performance, the following problems were detected in 15 types of plastic slippers:

In fact, the current domestic standards for slippers only have relevant requirements for performance in use, but do not set limit requirements for toxic and harmful chemicals such as phthalates and short-chain chlorinated paraffins.

So are the two substances found in the plastic slippers harmful to our bodies? Today we will give you some scientific information.

1. We have talked about phthalates too many times, and many common items in life have been found to contain excessive amounts of this substance.

The main hazard of phthalates is that they are environmental estrogens that interfere with the human endocrine system.

The picture material comes from the Internet

2. Short-chain chlorinated paraffins Short-chain chlorinated paraffins are considered to be substances that may cause environmental hazards. Such substances are highly toxic to aquatic organisms and will have long-term negative impacts on the aquatic environment.

In the EU REACH regulation, short-chain chlorinated paraffins are also included in the SVHC list (2008.10.28, the first batch).

Short-chain chlorinated paraffins are used as flame retardants or plasticizers in materials such as plastics, rubber, and paint surface coatings.

Our first exposure to short-chain chlorinated paraffins was on the plastic track in school.

Fortunately, the new runway standard GB 36246-2018 "Synthetic Surface Sports Fields for Primary and Secondary Schools" has been officially implemented and has made testing requirements for the harmful substances:

However, at present, there are basically no clear requirements for this substance in the current domestic consumer product standards.

The EU POPs regulations stipulate that the content of short-chain chlorinated paraffins in consumer products should be less than 0.15%, otherwise they are not allowed to be put on the market.

Last words

As we conduct further evaluations, we find that many products in our daily lives are unlikely to meet consumers’ demand for quality if they are tested only according to relevant domestic standards.

For some products with relatively good quality, it is difficult to highlight their quality through some existing standards.

We once again call for accelerating the improvement of existing standards so that manufacturers can obtain the indicators that their products need to improve. After all, only high standards can produce high-quality products.

At the same time, it can also guide consumers to identify better products when purchasing, use good money to drive out "bad" money, and promote healthier development of related industries.

As I said before: good products are produced, not tested.

References:

1. Shenzhen Consumer Council "2020 Plastic Slippers Comparative Test Report"
http://www.sz315.org/html/show-57-9017.html

2.https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32019R1021