Environmental pollutants found at fast food chains in Norway: report

OSLO, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Norwegian Institute for Air Research has found environmental pollutants in hamburger packaging at McDonald's and French fries bags at both McDonald's and Burger King restaurants, public broadcaster NRK reported Monday.

McDonald's hamburger packaging came the worst in the survey, out of nine fast food restaurants that were tested in the name of environmental organization The Future in Our Hands, NRK wrote.

Linda Hanssen, senior researcher at the institute, said that the amount of environmental pollutants found in the McDonald's hamburger bag was higher than previously measured in food packaging.

Although researchers think that environmental pollutants can have negative consequences for our health and are harmful to the environment, it is not illegal to use them in food packaging in Norway.

Now Hanssen and several other researchers work on getting the pollutants forbidden in food packaging.

Anja Bakken Riise, leader of The Future in Our Hands, is critical of the use of environmental poisoning in food packaging.

"It is a simple matter to make food packaging without this substance. There are several good alternatives that McDonald's and Burger King can use," she said.

The organization will now bring the matter up with the Norwegian Parliament to request a ban on on all so-called per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in food packaging.

McDonald's Norway announces to NRK that they are working to phase out environmental issues from their products.

"Despite the fact that we already comply with laws and regulations, we have started phasing out of fluorine in our packaging. The hamburger boxes are now made without the environmental pollutants that were detected in September. During January we will remove environmental pollutants from the French fries bag," Erik Lodding, Communications Director and Public Relations Officer in McDonald's Norway, told NRK.

Burger King told NRK that there is no reason to believe that the proven substance poses any risk to their customers.

"Our paper bags satisfy all requirements set by the authorities. However, we take this survey seriously and forward the test results to our supplier of paper bags for a further professional assessment. We also see that it is useful to ask the Food Safety Authority to do their professional assessment," Heidi Moss, Marketing Manager in Burger King, told NRK. Enditem