Résumé :
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The world production of plastics in 2017 was nearly 350 million metric tons and is expected to increase to 1.1 billion tons by 2050. Many poten-tially harmful chemicals are used during the production of plastics, either as building blocks of the plastic material itself or as additives to provide certain properties such as color or flexibility. Hazardous chemicals may also be present in plastics from contamination during production, such as styrene monomers, or formed during recycling, such as dioxins. These chemicals can leach into food, water, and the environment. Microplastics are widespread contaminants of the environment today that both contain hazardous chemicals as part of the material but that can also adsorb, mag-nify, and spread environmental contaminants such as PCBs. Hazardous chemicals in plastics are a source of concern because many of the chemi-cals that leach from plastics are EDCs. These EDCs include bisphenols, alkylphenol ethoxylates, perfluorinated compounds, brominated flame retardants, phthalates, UV stabilizer, and metals. The leaching of these EDCs from plastics is of concern because they have been shown to cause abnormal reproductive, metabolic, thyroid, immune, and neurological function. This has led to numerous international scientific societies such as the Endocrine Society and health organizations to weigh in and it has contributed to science-based action on EDCs by many stakeholders in-cluding some governments, retailers, and manufacturers. However, more efforts are needed to protect people and the environment from potentially harmful EDCs in plastics. Not all countries screen and regulate many known or potential EDCs and numerous compounds have yet to be tested for EDC activity and their impact on health.
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