While they still have a long way to go in cleaning up the products they offer*, in response to a recent class action lawsuit,** Amazon has announced that it will ban*** certain chemicals**** and plastics in food packaging used for its Amazon Kitchen brand*****. Here is a list of the newly banned chemicals that can leach from the packaging into the food:
-PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances),
-Phthalates,
-BPA (bisphenol A) and other bisphenols,
-Plastics polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic,
-Polystyrene (PS), and expanded polystyrene (EPS) plastic
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*Amazon previously earned a C+ grade in the 2019 “Who’s Minding the Store?” Retailer Report Card.
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**The Amazon Kitchen ban comes five months after the retailer was accused in a class action suit of using PFAS compounds in private label plates labeled as compostable. Class action lawsuits against Amazon alleging that materials claiming to be compostable in fact contain PFAS compounds are pending in California federal courts.
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***The substances will be restricted from the Amazon Kitchen brand sold in Amazon Go, Go Grocery and Fresh stores as well as Fresh delivery, but is not a complete ban across other Amazon private label or brand-name products.
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****Several of these chemical toxins are endocrine-disruptors and have been linked to elevated risks for a variety of serious adverse health outcomes including certain types of cancers, higher cholesterol, pregnancy complications/miscarriages, infertility, antibiotic resistance and reduced vaccine effectiveness, obesity, lowered IQ, and others. To learn what adverse effects these chemicals have been linked to in scientific studies please go to our main blog page, scroll down to the bottom and put the name of the chemical(s) in question into the search box. (If the external search box fails to find what you want, just Contact us and write the chemicals you are searching for in the comment box. We will do the search internally and send you the links to the scientific findings.)
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*****Amazon Kitchen brand suppliers are also being asked to phase out other bisphenols and the plastics polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and expanded polystyrene. The list also includes perchlorate, benzophenone, lead, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and the solvents NMP (N-Methylpyrrolidone), 2-Ethoxyethanol, 2-Methoxyethanol and toluene. In addition to PVC, PS and EPS, Amazon said it’s prohibiting the following nonrecyclable plastics in its food contact packaging: polycarbonates (PC), polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC), rigid polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhyrdoxyalkanoates (PHAs).
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Also see: Whole Foods Ditches Packaging Containing PFAS Chemicals
Chemical Free Life 