The paper, "From e-waste to living space: Flame retardants contaminating household items add to concern about plastic recycling," originally appeared in Chemosphere in September, 2024. The researchers found toxic flame retardants in several items that wouldn’t ordinarily need fire protection, such as sushi trays, vegetable peelers, slotted spoons and pasta servers. Then, for kitchen utensils, the authors used findings from another study, which measured how toxic chemicals including BDE-209 transfer from black plastic utensils into hot cooking oil, to estimate potential intake based on findings in their own study.

But the authors miscalculated that reference dose. They had put it at 42,000 ng/day instead of 420,000 ng/day. That hiccup led to the first correction to the paper, published in December, 2024.

Now the authors of a paper that went viral with attention-grabbing headlines urging people to throw out their black plastic kitchen tools have corrected the work for a second time. But a letter accompanying the correction suggests the latest update still fails "to completely correct the math and methodological errors present in the study," according to Mark Jones, an industrial chemist and consultant who has been following the case. "The errors are sufficient to warrant a restating of the abstract, sections of the paper and conclusions, if not a retraction."

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/07/06/viral-paper-black-plastic-kitchen-spatula-utensils-chemosphere-second-correction/

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