This is getting ridiculous. Melamine-laced milk, toxic chopsticks and cooking oil dredged from drains have all been making headlines in the Chinese press recently. Now comes claims that at least half the takeaway boxes used in Chinese restaurants are unsafe.

According to a front-page article in today’s Global Times, “China uses 15 billion disposable plastic takeaway boxes every year, but at least half of them are unsafe, containing chemicals that could cause cancer, an expert from a non-governmental food-packing organization estimated, warning that the danger to human health is as serious as taking drugs.”

The article continues: “Results from the Beijing Center for Physical and Chemical Analysis show that the plastic containers, which Dong [Dong Jinshi, of the Beijing Environmental Tableware Association,] took from the two restaurants on March 3, can easily make chemical reactions with oil and vinegar, up to 150 times the national standard.”

Then comes the revelation that according to a 2005 briefing made by a subordinate body of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), "a nationwide sampling inspection carried out by the agency in 2002 found that the qualified rate of disposable dinner and drink wares was 52 percent, and the result of a random inspection for the Beijing market, carried out by Beijing Administration for Industry and Commerce, was only 40 percent.”

The article cites a report saying “the pass rate of disposable tableware in Beijing has reached 70 percent,” so things have improved it seems – now only around one in three containers are dangerous.

Great.

In happier news, the claims that a man and a child suffered mercury poisoning after drinking tainted Sprite have been found to be untrue. According to this report, the child was found to have ingested mercury from a broken thermometer, while the man was poisoned by a colleague.