Black plastic has lead & toxic flame retardants... and your coffee maker is probably made out of it

April 08, 2024

Is your Coffee maker toxic?

There’s lots of surprisingly toxic things in your small electrics - but it’s also really easy to avoid them, I’m going to show you what to look for

So all plastic is toxic - and that’s not hyperbole

There’s over 16,000 chemicals used in plastic and 26% of them are known to be harmful to human health - but guess what, we only have toxicity data for 38% of those - meaning that the vast majority of chemicals that are used in plastic, we have no idea what they do to our bodies.

Black plastic has been shown to be contaminated with old electronic waste - meaning it has known carcinogenic compounds in it - that will leach out READILY into your coffee.

Specifically - Lead, arsenic, mercury and brominated flame retardants.

But secondly, there’s a huge supply and demand problem with black plastic - it doesn’t easily get recycled because the sorting machines can’t identify it - and it’s also extremely popular.

Since the supply has gotten really depleted, GLOBALLY lots of plastic manufacturers have started mixing old electronic waste black plastic with food grade plastic - sometimes this is accidental, sometimes it’s intentional - and regardless, it’s illegal.

However, now the entire supply chain of black plastic is so contaminated there’s no way to distinguish one form the other - so your old laptop or cell phone and all the toxic chemicals from that, might end up in your coffee machine.

And if it’s the outside of the machine - that doesn’t really make a difference - You're totally fine!

But if it’s the actual inside filter, then yes, that hot almost boiling water being poured through it will very much leach toxic heavy metals like lead, brominated flame retardants, and other just, cancer & Alzheimer causing compounds into your morning coffee.

But no need to ditch your entire coffee maker - if your coffee filter DOES have black plastic, you can easily get a universal stainless steel filter. This is totally safe and will remove the risk of lead, brominated flame retardants or other toxic chemicals in your coffee...

Here are a few options:

- Stainless Steel #4 Reusable Permanent Cone Coffee Filters

- Stainless Steel universal Coffee filter basket

And if you're in the market for a new coffee maker - here are some great options for PLASTIC FREE coffee makers:

- Stainless Steel French Press

- Cafe Specialty Coffee Maker, 10 Cup

- Chemex Classic Pour-over with stainless steel filter