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.