The disguise
A black nylon spatula isn’t pretending to be plastic-free — the hidden part is which plastic. Black plastic is hard for recycling sorters’ optical scanners to read, so it disproportionately gets made from recycled electronics casings — TVs, keyboards — carrying their flame retardants with it.
The evidence — corrections and all
This one is a case study in why every claim here gets graded.
The finding: researchers screened 203 black household products; about 1 in 10 had high bromine levels, and two-thirds of those contained brominated and organophosphate flame retardants — including banned deca-BDE — clear evidence of e-waste plastic entering food-contact items (Chemosphere, 2024) lab.
The error: the paper compared estimated daily intake (34,700 ng/day) to a US reference dose it misstated as 42,000 ng/day. The correct figure is 420,000 ng/day — off by 10×. Headlines said “near the safety limit”; the real estimate sat around 8% of it (the corrigendum, reported). A second correction (July 2025) revised the exposure estimate itself down to ~7,900 ng/day — about 2% of the reference dose (Retraction Watch) early.
What survives the corrections: banned flame retardants genuinely were measured in black kitchen utensils, and e-waste genuinely leaks into the food-contact supply chain. What doesn’t survive: the dose-based alarm. Contamination confirmed; panic not supported. Both sentences belong in the same paragraph, and most coverage printed only one of them.
The tell — and the fix
The tell: black colour plus no polymer marking, especially on cheap utensils and takeaway trays. The fix was already on my list for other reasons: stainless steel and wooden utensils solve the flame-retardant question, the nylon-oligomer question and the melting-into-the-pan question in one move. My black spatulas retired in 2025; I just have better-audited reasons now.