易拉罐內(nèi)襯或有安全新方案

Scientists and NGOs have been raising concerns since the 1980s over the presence of bisphenol A (BPA) in food and drink containers.

自20世紀(jì)80年代起，食品和飲料容器中的雙酚A(BPA)就引起了科學(xué)家和非政府組織的關(guān)注。

The industrial chemical, used to make polycarbonate plastic bottles and food storage containers, along with the epoxy resin linings in canned goods, has been associated with endocrine disorders.

這種用于制造聚碳酸酯塑料瓶和食品儲存容器的工業(yè)化學(xué)品，以及罐頭食品中的環(huán)氧樹脂襯里與內(nèi)分泌疾病有關(guān)。

Regulators have responded over the past decade: The FDA banned the compound from baby bottles and children’s drinking cups in 2012, and by 2018, 90% of steel food cans were being manufactured without it.

在過去的10年里監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)已經(jīng)做出了回應(yīng)：2012年FDA(美國食品藥物管理局)禁止在嬰兒奶瓶和兒童水杯中添加這種化合物，而且到2018年90%的鋼制食品罐頭都不含這種成分。

But the beverage industry has struggled to get the chemical out of aluminum cans, stymied by the difficulty of finding an alternative coating that stops the corrosion of both steel and aluminum effectively. (Due to manufacturing requirements, the can industry needs a compound that works for both.)

但飲料行業(yè)一直難以去除鋁罐中的這種化學(xué)物質(zhì)，因?yàn)楹茈y找到一種能同時有效地阻止鋼和鋁腐蝕的替代涂層。(由于生產(chǎn)需求，罐頭行業(yè)需要一種對兩者都適用的化合物。)

Meanwhile, demand for metal cans is rising as consumers look to decrease their environmental impact by avoiding plastic. Metal food packaging can be recycled an infinite number of times.

與此同時，由于消費(fèi)者希望減少對環(huán)境的影響而避免使用塑料瓶，因此對金屬罐的需求正在上升。畢竟金屬食品包裝可以回收無數(shù)次。

Driven by demand from food corporations and customers, coating-solutions company Valspar—part of manufacturing giant Sherwin-Williams since 2017—has spent 10 years developing a new epoxy from scratch, called valPure V70, which staves off corrosion without affecting endocrine activity.

受食品公司和客戶需求的推動，涂層解決方案公司威士伯(Valspar)從零開始，用了10年時間開發(fā)了一種名為valPure V70的新型環(huán)氧樹脂，它可以在不影響內(nèi)分泌活動的情況下防止腐蝕。2017年威士伯公司被制造業(yè)巨頭宣偉(Sherwin-Williams)收購。

In perhaps a first for the industrial coating industry, the company worked proactively with leading NGOs, scientists, and consumer health and safety groups—including the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Center for Science in the Public Interest; and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families—to ensure that the coating satisfied their safety requirements.

該公司積極與領(lǐng)先的非政府組織、科學(xué)家及消費(fèi)者健康安全組織(包括自然資源保護(hù)委員會、公共利益科學(xué)中心以及更安全的化學(xué)品，健康之家組織)合作，以確保其涂層滿足他們的安全性要求，而這可能是工業(yè)涂料行業(yè)的首次嘗試。

“Valspar went to incredible lengths to show that their compound was not estrogenic,” says Terrence Collins, chemistry director of the Institute for Green Science at Car­negie Mellon University, which was involved in testing valPure V70.

“威士伯付出了令人難以置信的努力來證明他們的化合物不是雌激素類化合物，”卡內(nèi)基·梅隆大學(xué)綠色科學(xué)研究所化學(xué)主任特倫斯·科林斯說道，該大學(xué)參與了valPure V70的測試。

But he sounds a note of caution. To know whether it’s safe beyond that, “we will need to see how it performs” on further testing.

但他也提醒道，要想知道除此之外它是否是安全的，“我們還需要看看它在進(jìn)一步測試中的表現(xiàn)”。

The beverage industry, however, has wasted no time in embracing valPure V70. Though it can’t contractually divulge which food and beverage brands it works with, Sherwin-Williams says that billions of cans coated with valPure V70 are already on the market, especially in California (where cans that contain BPA liners must carry a health warning).

然而，飲料業(yè)立馬開始使用valPure V70。雖然根據(jù)合同條款，宣偉不能透露它與哪些食品飲料品牌合作，但該公司表示，市面上已經(jīng)有數(shù)十億個貼有valPure V70涂層的易拉罐，特別是加州市場(在加州，含有BPA內(nèi)襯的易拉罐上必須有健康警告)。

The rollout is proof that even the most stalwart industries can benefit from embracing consumer feedback.

該產(chǎn)品的推出表明，即便是最穩(wěn)健的行業(yè)也能從采納消費(fèi)者反饋意見中受益。