Disposable paper cups are harmful to human health. Do you often use them?

Do you often use disposable paper cups when visiting outside? You may think this is "hygienic", but you don't know that some inferior paper cups use fluorescent bleach and recycled polyethylene illegally, or because the process materials are not up to standard, a lot of harmful compounds will be released when pouring hot water. The hot water in the paper cup smells bad. In order to entertain guests, Miss Wang often buys disposable paper cups from the supermarket. As the weather turned cold recently, she filled the guests with hot water in paper cups. She found that when the paper cup was filled with hot water, it would give off some particularly strange smells. She tried to change several brands of paper cups, all of which had such problems. As a last resort, she had to put some tea leaves in the paper cup to cover up the strange smell. Miss Wang is very worried: does this unpleasant smell mean that the material of the paper cup has undergone chemical changes under the action of hot water, and the chemicals released in this process are toxic? She hopes to verify with relevant experts. According to experts in food packaging materials, in order to achieve waterproof effect in the production of paper cups, the inner wall will be coated with a layer of polyethylene waterproof film. Polyethylene is the safest chemical substance in food processing, which is insoluble in water, nontoxic and tasteless. However, if the selected materials are not good or the processing technology is not enough, polyethylene may be oxidized into carbonyl compounds during hot melting or coating on paper cups. Carbonyl compounds do not volatilize at room temperature, but may volatilize when hot water is poured into paper cups, so people will smell strange smells. Although no research has confirmed that carbonyl compounds released from paper cups will bring any harm to human body and cause any malignant diseases, from the general theoretical analysis, long-term intake of this organic compound must be harmful to human body. What is even more worrying is that some inferior paper cups are made of recycled polyethylene, which will crack and change during reprocessing, producing many harmful compounds, which are more likely to migrate into water during use. The state explicitly prohibits the use of recycled polyethylene in food packaging, but because of its low price, some small factories still use it illegally in order to save costs. It is understood that in the national standard of paper cup quality, only microorganisms need to be detected, but chemicals are not detected, because such detection is very complicated and difficult. The good habit of using disposable cups was only advocated in recent years. Some people even use disposable cups frequently in their own offices, which looks "hygienic". In fact, it is neither environmentally friendly (disposable plastic cups are difficult to degrade, and disposable paper cups involve cutting down trees) nor healthy. In addition to the problems just mentioned, some disposable paper cup manufacturers buy low-priced pulp and add fluorescent bleach in the production process, which causes cancer. Experts advise not to use disposable cups unless absolutely necessary. If used, it is best to fill it with cold water to reduce the volatilization of harmful chemicals. In the early years, people had the habit of bringing their own cups, even when they went out for meetings, which was a very good habit. For the sake of environmental protection and health, we should advocate restoring this good habit. Li Chenhui Ling Jie