Modern Life and Self-Defense Health Care

Author: He Shiming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: Unveiling the Secret. On November 6, 2005, CCTV's "Weekly Quality Report" exposed the use of "dangerous raw materials in disposable lunch boxes," further uncovering the severe safety and quality issues surrounding disposable lunch boxes. In Beijing, the white-collar class eats boxed lunches daily at their workplaces, constantly facing a problem: the disposable lunch boxes they hold are thin, soft, and prone to leakage. During meals, white-collar workers must spread newspapers and wear aprons to prevent greasy food and soup from leaking out, dripping onto tables and their clothes. CCTV journalists conducted a special investigation and interview, revealing the truth behind the matter in detail.
Authentic disposable lunch boxes should be made from polypropylene (PP) as the raw material, which is relatively expensive, priced at 11,000 yuan per ton, resulting in a production cost of about 2 cents per box. However, some plastic enterprises and workshops in a large city in North China and certain counties in a province opted to use "polypropylene powder" as the raw material to reduce costs. Although "polypropylene powder" and polypropylene differ by only one character, their properties are entirely different—"polypropylene powder" is actually recycled plastic made from a mix of various waste plastics, making it very cheap. These businesses and workshops also added large amounts of industrial calcium carbonate and industrial paraffin during production, as these materials are also inexpensive (calcium carbonate costs 350 yuan per ton). As a result, the production cost of these disposable lunch boxes was only a few cents, giving them "market competitiveness."
The raw material packaging bags in their workshops were marked with names such as "polypropylene powder," industrial calcium carbonate, and crude paraffin (i.e., industrial paraffin).
Widespread Harm. Large quantities of counterfeit and substandard disposable lunch boxes were widely sold in Tianjin, Beijing, and Hebei Province. The counterfeiters even labeled the packaging with attractive claims such as "raw material: polypropylene, biodegradable and eco-friendly, non-toxic and harmless, high-temperature resistant, can be boiled." Testing and experiments by quality supervision authorities confirmed that these counterfeit disposable lunch boxes have a very low melting point, just 60 degrees Celsius. When exposed to hot food and dishes, they melt and cause leakage. The leakage problem faced by white-collar workers in Beijing stems from this.
Experiments showed that the melting residues of these counterfeit disposable lunch boxes contained components such as recycled plastic, industrial calcium carbonate, and industrial paraffin, as well as toxic substances like benzene, aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy metals such as lead and chromium. The lead content exceeded national standards by over 160 times. With so many toxic and harmful substances dissolving in the food, the health risks for white-collar workers and other office workers who eat boxed lunches daily are severe.
CCTV journalists specifically consulted medical experts at Beijing Friendship Hospital and were warned: calcium carbonate can cause digestive diseases and gallstones or kidney stones; benzene and aromatic hydrocarbon substances harm the nervous and blood systems and can even cause cancer; excessive intake of heavy metals like lead and chromium is also harmful to health, especially for children and adolescents. High levels of lead and chromium intake can severely affect intelligence and development.