By Annelies Gartner

Lifestyle changes can reduce the levels of plastic-associated chemicals in human bodies within days, which has prompted calls to modify the way we produce and package our food. 

From farm to fork our food comes into contact with many forms of plastic; products we put on our skin expose us to plastic chemicals as does the air we breathe.

Researchers at The University of Western Australia, with funding provided by Minderoo Foundation, have examined how adults are exposed to plastic and the levels of plastic chemicals in their bodies and found a low-plastic diet can reduce levels of these chemicals in the human body within just seven days.

Principal investigator Clinical Professor Michaela Lucas, together with Professor Gerald Watts and senior investigators Dr Amelia Harray and Dr Andrew Lucas, are leading the Plastic Exposure Reduction Transforms Health (PERTH) Trial in collaboration with Minderoo to investigate the impacts of two types of plastic chemicals, bisphenols and phthalates, on human health.

“Both of these chemicals can interfere with endocrine or hormonal functions in our body and have been linked to infertility and cardiometabolic disease,” Professor Lucas says.

Dr Andrew Lucas, Clinical Professor Michaela Lucas and Dr Amelia Harray

A team of dietitians, doctors, nurses, statisticians and biologists analysed urine, blood and nasal samples, body composition, dietary intake, plastic-related behaviours and socio-demographic data from 211 healthy adults.

“The Queensland Environmental Alliance Centre has a clean laboratory – it’s a stainless-steel box where they unpack the urine samples and measure them using glass, while wearing cotton clothes – so there is reduced environmental contamination,” Professor Lucas explains.

The results were contrary to previous studies where it was thought the body excreted plastic-associated chemicals within 24 hours.

“The ‘what you eat you excrete within 24 hours’ rule was really only correct if you’re looking at male participants who are very lean, however this was not quite the case for females or those with an increased fat mass index,” Professor Lucas says.

“It made us speculate that perhaps some of these chemicals are stored in your fat tissue or interact with the fat tissue and don’t get excreted as readily as we thought.”

More than 16,000 chemicals are commonly used in the manufacture of plastic for food and beverage packaging, cookware, kitchen utensils, cling film, plastic food and drink containers and personal care products, among many other items.

“It’s quite clear that we are continuously exposed to these plastic chemicals through our food and personal care products,” Dr Lucas says.

“Overall, the constant exposure to plastic-associated chemicals and micro-nanoplastic particles can trigger chronic inflammatory responses.

“These are the types of changes that make people more susceptible to disease, more susceptible to cancer – they’re all stressors on the body that we don’t need.”

All participants in the trial had high levels of plastic chemicals in their bodies, with each participant recording at least six different chemical types on any given day.

Overall, the constant exposure to plastic-associated chemicals and micro-nanoplastic particles can trigger chronic inflammatory responses.

Clinical Professor Michaela Lucas

“There was a high prevalence of the chemical bisphenol S in healthy participants, which is an alternate chemical used to replace bisphenol A, and this should ring warning bells for food standards regulators,” Dr Lucas says.

“It’s very easy for the industry to swap to another formula and it is becoming clear these replacements are likely to cause similar harms.

“What we need is an international effort to try and create a Global Plastics Treaty that reduces plastic production and bans the use of these chemicals.”

From the original study, 60 individuals were selected to be part of a randomised controlled trial involving a low-plastic diet and lifestyle intervention.

The participants were divided into five groups to test the effectiveness of replacing all foods, beverages, kitchenware and personal care products with low-plastic alternatives.

“We identified that highly processed, packaged and canned foods and beverages were significant contributors to plastic chemical levels in the urine samples,” Dr Harray says.

“Ultra-processed foods are convenient, often individually packaged in plastic and made from a combination of many ingredients.

“Each ingredient can have multiple plastic touch points during farming and processing – from plastic conveyor belts and tubing to plastic grinders and storage in plastic bags or containers – and this all happens before the food is packaged for purchase.

“People often don’t think about cans or tinned foods as containing plastic chemicals but the tins or cans are internally coated with polymer resins containing hormone-disrupting chemicals.”

Plastic chemicals more readily leach into foods that are fatty, acidic or aqueous (resemble water).

“Food heated in a plastic container that is high in fat, such as a soup that has lots of cream and oil, can have more plastic chemicals,” Dr Harray explains.

“If you fry a fatty piece of meat in a non-stick pan and use a plastic spatula, more plastic chemicals will go into the meat – fat and heat both promote plastic chemicals to go into the food.”

The team went to incredible lengths to ensure plastic and other sources of plastic chemicals, such as silicones and cans, were minimised along the food supply chain for the food intervention groups.

their food handling, processing and packaging to reduce plastic exposure from farm to fork,” Dr Harray says.

At the end of the seven-day intervention all low-plastic groups showed a decrease in urinary plastic chemical levels, compared to the control group.

“By altering the participant’s lifestyle to include the consumption of low-plastic food, prepared with low-plastic kitchenware and the use of low-plastic personal care products, phthalates decreased by more than 44 per cent and bisphenols by more than 50 per cent,” Dr Lucas says.

The PERTH Trial team is calling for low-plastic, sustainable, cost-effective and healthy options to be more affordable and accessible for all people, which will require laws and regulations around plastic chemical use to be reformed globally.

“We do know that plastic chemicals are harmful to humans, and the health burden has and will increase over time unless we intervene,” Professor Lucas says.

“This trial has delivered a message of hope that we can actively reduce plastic chemical levels in our bodies but is linked to significant changes in the way we produce and package our food.”

Researchers are now looking at how plastic chemicals could impact heart disease as well as fertility.

10 tips for reducing plastic exposure

• Wash canned foods before use, such as beans
• Don’t microwave food in plastic containers or cook with plastic utensils
• Use wooden cutting boards
• Swap non-stick pans for stainless steel – and clean with steel wool
• Wrap food in paper towels or tin foil instead of plastic wrap
• Store food in glass jars
• Buy big packets of food instead of individually wrapped serving sizes
• Buy loose fruit and vegetables, not prepacked in plastic
• Buy drinks in glass bottles instead of plastic bottles or cans
• Buy tomato passata in glass rather than tinned tomatoes

Read the full issue of the Winter 2026 edition of Uniview [Accessible PDF].