Some local studies have been done on plastic bag usage (The Sun 22 April 2010) in the environmental context but I've been unable to find a local study on whether our heavy reliance on plastic utensils - bowls, plates, chopsticks - has a correlation to ailments like cancer in Malaysians. Has anyone come across such a study?

The concern is bisphenol A (BPA) and other compounds that are released from plastics when they come into contact with hot water. A related question is whether there are manufacturing standards within the local plastics industry to reduce this danger.

My own father is a cancer patient and it was during his treatment that I notice how cancer sufferers tend to be Chinese. I wonder if its just a coincidence that this segment also has a lifestyle of eating out... at hawkers who routinely serve you boiling hot soup in cheap plastic bowls, give you plastic chopsticks & plastic soup spoons. Has anyone seen a proven link between a habitual use of these implements and cancer?

p/s I know we humans will die of anything we eat if we eat enough of it but I'd like to confine the discussion to the effect of plastics on our mortality.

That is why I'm looking for trend data rather than individual case.

This issue is an old one & actually well publicized. I think all parties have a hand in this: the consumer for not taking the issue seriously, the hawkers for using cheap plastic utensils to cut cost, and the authorities for not enforcing plastics by-laws if they do actually have such laws.

The effect of BPA was challenged by some studies before (can't recall them off the top of my head) but the data wasn't local and was likely collected from a population that didn't use plastics as much as we Malaysians. I am interested in local stats if any.

Thanks for the reference dude. Now if only I could draw the dotted line between the cancer patients in KL and their eating habits at the hawkers....