Vernikov questions Anderson on plastic packaging health concerns
Vernikov raises health concerns about plastics, citing her father's plastics factory background, and asks about particular plastic packaging types of concern. Anderson discusses PFAS and forever chemicals but defers health questions to the Health Department, noting DSNY's expertise is in collection and remanufacturing.
And the other question I have is about plastics.
Actually, my father back in the Ukraine owned a plastics factory that manufactured a lot of plastics products.
So I actually know how dangerous it is to eat from plastics.
And God forbid, some people microwave plastic.
I've seen it myself.
So are there particular types of plastic packaging that present greater concerns in the New York City food system, if you could address that a little bit, whether it's packaging, bottled beverages, food preparation equipment, storage containers, or something else?
Thank you.
That's a fantastic question.
And certainly we've heard a lot of conversation in the last few years around PFAS and
other forever chemicals like that that are additives to plastic and other products that certainly have health impacts.
As far as the health implications of just different types of plastics, that's something that I think we'd have to defer to our colleagues at the health department on.
Our expertise is really on what happens to the
those products once we collect them and are we able to remanufacture them into new things.
But certainly there have been, I think, growing concerns expressed around the health implications of the amount of plastics that New Yorkers use.
Thank you.