Countries are currently negotiating a global treaty to end plastic pollution and make plastics safer and more sustainable. Plastic chemicals are a core issue because all plastics, from food packaging to car tires, contain hundreds of chemicals that can leach into foodstuffs, homes, and the environment.
Many of these are known to harm the health of humans and the environment. However, a comprehensive overview of these chemicals is currently missing, which limits society's ability to protect people and planet from hazardous plastic chemicals.
A new peer-reviewed study published in Nature today provides a comprehensive and systematically compiled overview of all chemicals that can be present in plastics, their properties, uses, and hazards. It encompasses both chemicals intentionally added during production and contaminants detected in plastics. Importantly, the study provides a scientific approach for identifying chemicals of concern. This allows scientists and manufacturers to develop safer plastics and policy makers to promote a non-toxic circular economy.
The new study shows that there are more plastic chemicals than previously known, with 16,325 chemicals included in the PlastChem database that accompanies the work. Importantly, the scientists discovered at least 4,200 plastic chemicals are of concern because of the hazards they pose to health and the environment. These chemicals of concern can be present in each major plastic type, including in food packaging, and all tested plastics can release hazardous chemicals.
"Plastics should not contain harmful chemicals to begin with. Yet, the scientific evidence shows that they are intentionally used or unintentionally present in all types of plastics. This underpins the urgent need to make plastics safer," said Martin Wagner, a lead author of the study and professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.
The new study outlines three major pathways towards safer and more sustainable plastics: safer chemicals, transparency, and chemically simpler plastics. Known chemicals of concern should be removed from plastics, either by voluntary industry action or regulation. More transparency is needed, given that industry currently does not disclose which chemicals are present in which plastic product. Finally, plastics should be re-designed to contain fewer chemicals that are thoroughly assessed for their safety, particularly if they are to be reused or recycled.
"There is a lot of momentum to make plastics safer. Our study provides the scientific evidence needed to achieve that goal and better protect human health and the environment from chemicals of concern in plastics," said Dr. Laura Monclús, a lead author of the study and researcher at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) in Trondheim.
Reference
Laura Monclús, Hans Peter H. Arp, Ksenia J. Groh, Andrea Faltynkova, Mari E. Løseth, Jane Muncke, Zhanyun Wang, Raoul Wolf, Lisa Zimmermann, Martin Wagner (2025). Mapping the chemical complexity of plastics, Nature, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09184-8 .
