The UK has turned its back on EU guidelines regarding the safe level of Bisphenol A in plastic containers.
The chemical, which has been linked to low sperm counts and infertility in men as well as breast and prostate cancer, was ruled to be 20,000 times too high by EU officials this month after reviewing 800 new studies.
It is most widely found in refillable drinks bottles and food storage containers, as well as the protective coatings and linings for food and drinks cans.
EU watchdogs previously ruled in 2015 that a safe daily exposure, through the small amounts leaking from plastic packaging, was 4 micrograms per kilogram of a person’s body weight.
But experts from the bloc’s European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) have now revised this down to 0.2 nanograms per kilogram per day.
France has gone one step further and banned its use in all food packaging, containers and utensils.
Britain currently follows the old EU BPA safety level enacted in 2015, which carried over after Brexit.
These rules restricted the use of BPA in baby bottles as well as containers for infant formula both in the bloc and in Britain.
It means that the safe level of BPA in plastic containers in the UK could now be 20,000 times higher than in Europe, a fact exposed by BBC Panorama last night:
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