Peer-reviewed papers

The unchecked rise in global plastic production has resulted in widespread pollution and exposure to hazardous chemicals. Over 16,000 chemicals are used across the plastics life cycle, with thousands meeting criteria for persistence, bioaccumulation, mobility and toxicity. Many remain unregulated under existing multilateral environmental agreements. In response, the United Nations Environment Assembly has mandated the development of an international, legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. Current treaty negotiations have begun addressing a short list of chemicals, yet significant gaps remain. These include insufficient regulatory mechanisms, lack of chemical transparency and reliance on ineffective recycling strategies that reintroduce toxic substances into consumer products. The presence of harmful chemicals in plastics contributes to major public health burdens and is an environmental threat, with high annual costs that reduce the potential for economic development through safer recycling. Vulnerable populations, including children, reproductive-aged individuals, and frontline communities, face heightened risks. To address this, we recommend the following three critical actions for the treaty: (1) globally regulating chemicals of concern based on hazard; (2) mandating transparency of plastic chemical composition and (3) designing plastics using safe-by-design principles and essential-use criteria. Group-based regulation, which would consider categories of related chemicals, should replace individual chemical approaches to prevent regrettable substitutions. Binding, global obligations, rather than fragmented or voluntary measures, are vital for sustainability, chemical safety, circularity and accountability across the plastics life cycle. A strong treaty is a critical opportunity to achieve a safer, more sustainable future for human and environmental health.

Plastic pollution is a pervasive and growing global problem1,2,3,4. Chemicals in plastics are often not sufficiently considered in the overall strategy to prevent and mitigate the impacts of plastics on human health, the environment and circular economy5,6,7. Here we present an inventory of 16,325 known plastic chemicals with a focus on their properties, presence in plastic and hazards. We find that diverse chemical structures serve a small set of functions, including 5,776 additives, 3,498 processing aids, 1,975 starting substances and 1,788 non-intentionally added substances. Using a hazard-based approach, we identify more than 4,200 chemicals of concern, which are persistent, bioaccumulative, mobile or toxic. We also determine 15 priority groups of chemicals, for which more than 40% of their members are of concern. Finally, we examine data gaps regarding the basic properties, hazards, uses and exposure potential of plastic chemicals. Our work maps the chemical landscape of plastics and contributes to setting the baseline for a transition towards safer and more sustainable materials and products. We propose that removing known chemicals of concern, disclosing the chemical composition and simplifying the formulation of plastics can provide pathways towards this goal.

The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on plastic pollution are United Nations member states who will convene for the second part of the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in Geneva (INC5.2) 5-14 August, 2025 to negotiate a global plastics treaty. The Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty (‘The Scientists’ Coalition’) is an international network of independent scientific and technical experts who have been contributing robust science to treaty negotiators since INC1 in 2022. The Scientists’ Coalition established a series of working groups following INC5.1 in Busan, Korea 25 November – 1 December 2024. Each working group has produced science-based responses to the selected articles of ‘the Chair’s text’ (the latest version of the draft global plastics treaty text). This Letter to the Editor summarises those responses.

Micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in foodstuffs lead to widespread human exposure and are often linked to environmental contamination. However, the role of plastics in food contact articles (FCAs) has received less attention, despite being a known source. Thus, we compiled a systematic evidence map of MNPs present in foodstuffs in contact with all types of plastic FCAs. We extracted data on experimental design, FCAs, MNPs, and food or food simulants and critically appraised the general data quality, material identification methods, polymer type reporting, and study design. We included 103 eligible studies and created 600 database entries accessible in an interactive dashboard. Seven studies were appraised as highly reliable. We conclude that the normal/intended use of FCAs can lead to the migration of MNPs. Further research is needed to systematically characterize MNP migration related to materials and use. To better protect human health, regulations could mandate MNP migration testing for FCAs.

The rapid expansion of the global chemical industry, fueled by consumerism and economic growth, has created severe environmental and public health challenges. The current chemicals management approach primarily regulates the “production system”, setting standards and imposing large responsibilities on the chemical industry. However, this approach has been found inadequate as it often neglects the vital role of the “consumption system” in driving chemicals’ production, use, and pollution caused by them. To address this imbalance, we propose a systematic integration of behavior-shaping tools into the global and local chemical management strategies, aimed at shifting consumer behavior towards safer and more sustainable chemical consumption. By applying ethical marketing and social- and behavioral-science techniques, consumers, including risk-sensitive groups like women of childbearing age and children, can be nudged and empowered to make and adopt safer and mindful chemical choices, ultimately reducing their exposure to toxic chemicals. This consumer-oriented approach complements traditional “industry-focused” chemical regulations. Such an integrated approach (with management roles spanning across different stakeholders) is particularly required in regions with outdated or weak regulatory enforcement. Furthermore, fostering consumer demand for safer and more sustainable chemicals consumption will incentivize chemical industry innovations and encourage the market to move towards safer alternatives. Ultimately, a comprehensive integrated approach that focuses on both production and consumption systems could better strengthen global chemicals management, leading to improved environmental and public health outcomes and advancing progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

Humans are widely exposed to synthetic chemicals, especially via food. The types of chemical contaminants in food (including food contact chemicals) are diverse, and many of these are known to be hazardous, with mounting evidence that some contribute to noncommunicable diseases. The increasing consumption of ultra-processed foods, which contain synthetic chemicals, also contributes to adverse health. If the chemical contamination of foods were better characterized, then this issue would likely receive more attention as an important opportunity for disease prevention. In this Review, we discuss types and sources of synthetic food contaminants, focusing on food contact chemicals and their presence in ultra-processed foods. We outline future research needs and highlight possible responses at different food system levels. A sustainable transition of the food system must address the health impacts of synthetic chemicals in food; we discuss existing solutions that do justice to the complexity of the issue while avoiding regrettable substitutions and rebound effects.

Agriculture and food systems are major sources of plastic pollution but they are also vulnerable to their diverse lifecycle impacts. However, this problem is not well-recognized in global policy and scientific discourse, agendas, and monitoring of food systems. The United Nations-led Global Plastics Treaty, which has been under negotiation since 2022, is a critical opportunity to address pollution across the entire plastics lifecycle for more sustainable and resilient food systems. Here, we offer aspirational indicators for future monitoring of food systems’ plastics related to (1) plastic polymers and chemicals, (2) land use, (3) trade and waste, and (4) environmental and human health. We call for interdisciplinary research collaborations to continue improving and harmonising the evidence base necessary to track and trace plastics and plastic chemicals in food systems. We also highlight the need for collaboration across disciplines and sectors to tackle this urgent challenge for biodiversity, climate change, food security and nutrition, health and human rights at a whole systems level.

Among the crises engulfing the world is the symbiotic rise of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and plastics. Together, this co-dependent duo generates substantial profits for agri-food and petrochemical industries at high costs for people and planet. Cheap, lightweight and highly functional, plastics have ideal properties that enable business models to create demand for low-cost, mass-produced and hyper-palatable UPFs among populations worldwide, hungry, or not.

Evidence linking UPF consumption to deterioration in diet quality and higher risk of chronic diseases is well-established and growing rapidly. At the same time, the issue of plastic food contact chemicals (FCCs) is receiving increasing attention among the human health community, as is the generation and dispersion of micro- and nanoplastics.

In this commentary, we explore how the lifecycles and shared economic benefits of UPFs and plastics interact to co-produce a range of direct and indirect harms. We caution that the chemical dimension of these harms is underappreciated, with thousands of plastic FCCs known to migrate into foodstuffs. Some of these are hazardous and have been detected in humans and the broader environment, while many are yet to be adequately tested.

We question whether policies on both UPF and plastic chemicals are fit for purpose when production and consumption of these products is adding to the chronic chemical exposures that plausibly contribute to the increasing global burden of non-communicable diseases.

In the context of ongoing negotiations for a legally binding global treaty to end plastics pollution, and rapidly growing concern about the burgeoning share of UPFs in diets worldwide, we ask: What steps are needed to call time on this toxic relationship?

Many nations have food contact material (FCM) legislation purporting to protect citizens from hazardous chemicals, often specifically by regulating genotoxic carcinogens. Despite such regulations, cancers that are associated with harmful chemical exposures are highly prevalent, especially breast cancer. Using the novel Key Characteristics of Toxicants framework, Kay et al. found 921 substances that are potential mammary carcinogens. By comparing Kay et al.‘s chemicals list with our own Database on migrating and extractable food contact chemicals (FCCmigex), we found that 189 (21%) of the potential mammary carcinogens have been measured in FCMs. When limiting these results to migration studies published in 2020–2022, 76 potential mammary carcinogens have been detected to migrate from FCMs sold in markets across the globe, under realistic conditions of use. This implies that chronic exposure of the entire population to potential mammary carcinogens from FCMs is the norm and highlights an important, but currently underappreciated opportunity for prevention. Reducing population-wide exposure to potential mammary carcinogens can be achieved by science-based policy amendments addressing the assessment and management of food contact chemicals.

Background: Over 1800 food contact chemicals (FCCs) are known to migrate from food contact articles used to store, process, package, and serve foodstuffs. Many of these FCCs have hazard properties of concern, and still others have never been tested for toxicity. Humans are known to be exposed to FCCs via foods, but the full extent of human exposure to all FCCs is unknown. To close this important knowledge gap, we conducted a systema􀆟c overview of FCCs that have been monitored and detected in human biomonitoring studies according to a previously published protocol. We first compared the more than 14,000 known FCCs to five biomonitoring programs and three metabolome/exposome databases. In a second step, we prioritized FCCs that have been frequently detected in food contact materials and systematically mapped the available evidence for their presence in humans. For 25% of the known FCCs (3601), we found evidence for their presence in humans. This includes 194 FCCs from human biomonitoring programs, with 80 of these having hazard properties of high concern. Of the 3528 FCCs included in metabolome/exposome databases, most are from the Blood Exposome Database. We found evidence for presence in humans for 63 of the 175 prioritized FCCs included in the systema􀆟c evidence map, and 59 of the prioritized FCCs lack hazard data. Notwithstanding that there are also other sources of exposure for many FCCs, these data will help to priori􀆟ze FCCs of concern by linking information on migration and biomonitoring. Our results on FCCs monitored in humans are available as an interactive dashboard (FCChumon) to enable policymakers, public health researchers, and food industry decision makers to make food contact materials and articles safer, reduce human exposure to hazardous FCCs and improve public health.