China seizes millions of toxic food containers

Often, I think I know China well. However, just as often, it occurs to me that I don't really know what I thought I knew. The visions and experiences collected and stored in my mind while I am awake are gone after I have slept. Reasoning and understanding seem to last only for a few hours before becoming illusory: the images and meanings disappear one by one, stolen from me by apparitions and secreted away, never to be returned in their original form. The understandings that I have assiduously acquired are nothing more than banal when bound together to try and shape the oldest continuous civilization on earth. Experience, learning and proudly possessed knowledge, gained from many sources and from interaction with its people, are taken from everyone who thinks they know China and passed on to others who share them smugly, use them with confidence, reverently broadcast them as Gospel for a few praiseworthy moments. "I know China." Then, time and circumstance mangle them until they are beyond comprehension. These too will be passed on and shared as truth, only to be proved wrong again. The enigma is this: China never changes, but China is always changing. Its people beset by burden, affected with melancholy, inured to bewilderment, and suckled on uninterrupted millennia of incalculable hopelessness and sorrow. "There is chaos under heaven and things could not be better", said Mao Zedong. This is the real truth: "China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese" - Charles De Gaulle. China: don't ask, it is what it is...

04/28/2010

BEIJING — Authorities in China have seized more than seven million toxic disposable food containers, state media reported Wednesday, in the latest product safety scare to hit the nation.
Seven companies in the eastern province of Jiangxi were busted for manufacturing the long-banned foam boxes using plastic waste and fluorescent whitening agents, the official China Daily newspaper said.
Disposable food containers are routinely used by restaurants across China. Authorities banned foam boxes in 1999, but they can still be found in many parts of the country.
The warmth of a hot meal causes toxic elements used to make the foam containers to seep into the food. Those substances can damage people's livers, kidneys and reproductive systems.
According to the report, authorities seized a total of 7.2 million unsafe foam boxes in the provincial capital Nanchang and enough raw materials to make 10 million more.
Read more at Google News

Apr 28, 2010 5:00:02 PM | Current Affairs, Food and Drink, Health