Call to ban plastic bottles

TT, New Delhi, Feb. 19: Sections of medics' associations today called on the Centre to enforce a proposed ban on the use of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or plastic containers to package some medications and impose rigorous quality standards on plastic packaging of other edible products.

The Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP) and the Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies of India (Fogsi) are among groups that want the health ministry to enforce its proposal notified last September to ban the use of PET plastic for packaging medicines for children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Amid studies from outside India suggesting that PET bottles may under certain circumstances leach endocrine-disrupting compounds, the health ministry had issued a notification on September 29, 2014, seeking objections and suggestions from stakeholders.

The material is widely used to package drinking water, beverages and liquid medical formulations. The plastics industry has asserted that PET bottles are not a source of endocrine disrupters.

But Himjagriti, a Dehra Dun-based NGO campaigning against plastic waste, has been urging doctors to articulate what some claim are emerging health concerns about PET. "We've been trying to persuade doctors to speak up about this," Himjagriti's president Ajay Jugran said.

Himjagriti and representatives of IAP and Fogsi today cited medical studies that they claim link chemicals from PET plastic bottles with several health issues connected to endocrine disruption.

A study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2010, had suggested that the contents of PET bottles and the temperatures at which they are stored appear to influence the rate and magnitude of leaching of various phthalates. The study conducted by US researchers had indicated that phthalates leach into products such as soda and vinegar more readily than into bottled water and that there is greater leaching at higher temperatures.

The study had, however, called for "more research" to "clarify the mechanisms through which beverages or condiments in PET containers may be contaminated by endocrine-disrupting chemicals".

"The evidence suggests it is time to act now -- the government should go ahead with the proposed ban," said Sanjeev Bagai, a senior consultant paediatrician in New Delhi, who's among the doctors who cited studies indicating the presence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in PET bottles.

Himjagriti cited a recent study it had commissioned at the National Test House, Calcutta, which has also suggested that levels of a compound called DEHP-phthalate -- a constituent of plastic containers -- leached by PET bottles increases with temperature.

The study had found that the DEHP-phthalate level in pharmaceutical bottles stored at 40 degrees C was 0.024 parts per million, or four-fold higher than the safe level prescribed by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Doctors have also cited statements from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the International Federation of Fertility Societies that they claim have linked phthalates and a compound called biphenol A (bpA) with decreased fertility and increased rates of miscarriages.

"We do not have any epidemiological studies from India that specifically link PET with ill health, but the evidence from other countries is strong," said Seema Singhal, an assistant professor or obstetrics and gynaecology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi.

The doctors have also called for rigorous enforcement of quality standards on PET bottles used to package or store water. "The packaging of medicines should be just the start -- we have to start somewhere," she said.

The phthalates that get released into bottles, she said, have the potential to blend with the contents of bottles and contribute to health issues such as increased rates of miscarriages, pre-term births, and or development disabilities in the womb or during childhood.

The health ministry's September notification followed a set of recommendations by the government's drugs technical advisory board and is expected to come into force six months after its publication in the official gazette.