Supposedly eco-friendly paper coffee cups are just as toxic as plastic ones and may be linked to birth defects and other health problems – a week after similar findings with disposable straws

Supposedly eco-friendly paper cups can be just as toxic to the environment and the human body as plastic cups, a study suggests.

Scientists in Sweden found that the thin film of plastic applied to the surfaces of disposable paper cups to prevent the contents from seeping into the paper emitted toxins.

In experiments involving insects birth defects and other developmental damage, both when the paper cup biodegraded in water, as well as sediment or dirt.

The news comes just weeks after similar results from researchers in Belgium, who found that paper straws tested high in concentrations of the group of toxic synthetic “forever chemicals.”

Now the Swedish researchers are calling for “transparency requirements within the plastics industry,” hoping to “enforce clear reporting on what chemicals all products contain, just like in the pharmaceutical industry.”

Because paper easily absorbs water, other liquids, oils and fats from all kinds of food and beverages, manufacturers treat the paper used in food packaging with resistant plastic surface coatings.

Today, these plastics are often a type of renewable, biodegradable bioplastic called polylactide, or PLA, which is made from corn, cassava, or sugar cane instead of the fossil fuels used to make traditional plastics.

Although PLA breaks down faster than these more common petroleum-based plastics, the researchers at the Swedish University of Gothenburg were able to show that chemicals embedded in the plastic can damage harlequin fly larvae.

The species, a type of mosquito technically known as Chironomus ripariusit’s been a long time a standard candidate for preliminary toxicology and developmental genetic studies of this kind.

“We left paper cups and plastic cups in wet sediment and water for a few weeks and monitored how the leached chemicals affected the larvae,” ecotoxicologist Bethanie Carney Almroth, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Gothenburg, said in a statement. .

“All mugs had a negative impact on mosquito larvae growth,” Almroth said.

In addition to the PLA-coated paper cups, the researchers also tested plastic cups made of polypropylene (PP) and black polystyrene lids for comparison.

For some of their PP cases, the researchers found developmental damage in harlequin larvae — but in many plastic-coated paper cups, the larvae didn’t even reach a state of maturity where genetic developmental damage could be found.

“The low number of individuals reaching the fourth instar (stage),” the scientists wrote in their study for the journal Environmental pollution“is important in itself.”

Some of the chemicals found in these PLA and PP plastics include ultraviolet (UV) light stabilizers, flame retardants, plasticizers, and the detergent-like substance nonylphenolwhich the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers toxic.

As with the paper straws, PFAS was another worrying presence, as were, the researchers said, “hundreds of different chemicals that can migrate into foods.”

These chemicals, they report, could contain endocrine disruptors that can affect sexual reproduction, growth and other bodily functions; as well as chemicals that can build up in the body and cause cancer and other toxic effects.

“Some chemicals in plastics are known to be toxic,” Almroth stressed in her statement, “others we have no knowledge of.”

Paper packaging is also “a potential health hazard,” given its plastic content, she noted, “and it’s becoming more common.”

‘When disposable products came on the market after World War II,’ Almroth said, ‘there were big campaigns to teach people how to throw the products away, which we thought was unnatural!’

She and her co-authors hope that similar awareness training can return society to older, less wasteful habits.

“We need to downshift and move away from disposable lifestyles,” Almroth said. ‘When buying take-away coffee, it is better to bring your own mug.’

“Or at least take a few minutes, sit down and drink your coffee from a china mug,” she said.