You may be hearing some buzz lately about black plastics. They’ve been in the news because of a study in Chemosphere, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, that highlights how flame retardants in black plastic are contaminating household products and potentially affecting your health. This is particularly concerning with black plastic food preparation and storage items including takeout containers.

Watch the Badass + Healthy YouTube video below and read the blog for some quick tips on why you shouldn’t heat single-use plastics, why black plastic is particularly bad and what to do about it.

Don’t Reuse or Heat Single-Use Plastic Food Containers

No single-use plastic takeout container should ever be reused, let alone heated up. Heat from your dishwasher or microwave or hot food put back into a plastic container = chemicals that are not meant for ingesting will leach into your food and drink. If you must reuse them, stick with clear single-use plastics, hand wash them, and only use them for cold food storage. If there are any scratches or shape warping, throw them out stat.

DEFINITELY Don’t Reuse Black Plastic Food Containers

Add black plastic to the mix and it gets worse. Black plastic is often made from electronics that are melted down or carbon black, a soot byproduct of coal and petroleum. While we can appreciate recycling these things into something else, it’s absurd that they should become items people eat and drink from…also toys…because chemicals like flame retardants are known carcinogens (aka cancer causing) and hormone disruptors, among other thing that are bad for your health.

Black Plastic Food Containers Cannot Be Recycled

What adds to black plastic food containers and kitchen items offensiveness is that they will end up in landfills. Recycling facilities’ sorters don’t recognize black pigment so their machines move them into the landfill pile where they will continue to leach those toxic chemicals into the earth. Boo! Come on, tech innovators, let’s get it together in this department!

Throw Them Out Anyway

I suggest recycling your clear single-use plastic food containers and to throw all black plastic kitchen items, including food takeout containers, utensils and cutting boards away. There are chemicals all around us in the products we use all the time. Some are totally fine. Others are not. These would fall into that category. There are other materials that can be used for a variety of activities in the kitchen that are safer: wood, stainless steel, glass, silicone, bamboo, ceramic, etc. I won’t get into all of those here, but I encourage you to opt for other materials whenever possible in the kitchen.

What to Use to Heat Up Food

When heating up your food or warm drinks in the microwave, use a ceramic plate, bowl or cup. Or, opt for the toaster oven, oven or stovetop to reheat food and drinks.