University of Toronto study finds banned chemicals in several consumer products

Scientists at the University of Toronto released the findings of a study that showed a large number of consumer, household items contained chlorinated paraffins – chemicals that were banned in Canada 10 years ago. Nick Westoll reports.

It’s been a decade since chlorinated paraffins were banned in Canada, but scientists involved in a newly released University of Toronto study say they found the chemicals in a large majority of the products they tested.

Chlorinated paraffins are used in plastics as additives to soften the materials and make the materials easier to move. Those behind the study said a lot still needs to be learned about the chemicals, but the concerns have been lingering for some time.

“It’s generally considered under the class of possible carcinogens. There haven’t been much in the way of human studies on them or they’ve been inconclusive, but there have been some studies on rats showing that they are carcinogenic and possibly neurodevelopmentally toxic,” Dr. Steven Kutarna at the University of Toronto told CityNews.

“It’s similar enough to compounds that we know are toxic that we’re concerned.”

Kutarna said the team bought 96 lower-cost, everyday items, including toys and electronic cords, to test for the presence of chlorinated paraffins. He and the team cut away bits of plastic to dissolve in solution before analyzing it in highly specialized instruments.

“We were surprised at the number of products that we found them in. We thought they’d be in a few but they’re in far more than we expected,” he said.

“We found these compounds in 84 per cent of the products that we tested. More studies would need to be done to test other products to see what else they’re in, but… I’d be willing to say that they’re in a lot of a lot more things than we currently suspect.”

Given how the chemicals are “generally considered toxic,” Kutarna said the presence of the chemicals in children’s toys was “concerning and surprising” to the University of Toronto team.


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“The toxicity is not very well studied, but the main danger is for kids basically eating parts of the toys. So if they’re actually just chewing them and ingesting components, then that would be of concern,” he said.

They also looked at personal care items such as shampoo and said trace amounts of contamination were found, believed to have been transferred from the bottles.

The team didn’t release a specific list of items tested, but Kutarna added the highest concentrations that might spark more worry were in just 10 per cent of the products.

Based on the findings, Kutarna said two actions need to happen.

“One direction is a development of the methods to make it more easy to test for these,” he said, noting the chemicals are “very technically challenging to analyze.”

“Even the last few years, this has been more availability of chemical standards to analyze these with and so the methods are continuously improving … Our study was only possible because of this very expensive instrument that we have, so that’s something that government labs might struggle with.”

Kutarna also said federal officials need to step up and conduct “enforcement of the regulations that we do already have in place.”

He also called for further study into the chemicals.

“Chlorinated paraffins are far more widespread than we previously assumed,” Katarna said.

“There still needs to be a lot more research into what kinds of products they’re in and where the specific source of these compounds are because they might be entering much further or much earlier in the manufacturing stream than we currently control.”

CityNews contacted Environment and Climate Change Canada, the federal ministry responsible for overseeing protections against chemicals, on Wednesday to ask about the University of Toronto study’s findings and what action is being taken to crack down on the chemicals. However, a response wasn’t received by the time of publication.

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