Casting resin, resin, epoxy resin - health risks and safety tips

Casting resin, resin, epoxy resin - health risks and safety tips

According to a report by amp.infranken.de, Homemade gifts are often the best because you put a lot of time and effort into making them. Often a particular craft material is used that has been classified as suspected of being carcinogenic. Kerstin Effers, chemist and environmental and health protection expert at the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Center, also clearly warns against this substance in a press release. We are talking about casting resin, which is also referred to as “resin” or “epoxy resin”.

Casting resin is very popular with craft fans and those involved in arts and crafts and is used to make jewelry, decorative objects, bowls and children's toys. It is a mixture of epoxy resins based on the substance bisphenol A (BPA). According to the declaration on the Internet, this product also contains tributyl phosphate, which is classified as a suspected carcinogen, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).

Manufacturers and retailers often advertise synthetic resins made from BPA as “non-toxic,” “safe for health,” or even “suitable for food contact” or for toys. However, the European Food Safety Authority has drastically reduced the daily tolerable intake of BPA.

Bisphenol A is a substance that can disrupt the human hormonal system and has possible links to obesity, type 2 diabetes, female infertility, impotence, reduced birth weight and neurological changes in the child. This year, the European Food Safety Authority reduced the daily tolerable intake by 20,000 times to 0.2 billionths of a gram per kilogram of body weight.

The EU plans to ban the chemical in materials that come into contact with food. The amount of BPA from craft casting resins that can be released is not known, but chemically similar epoxy resin coatings on food cans are known to release BPA into the environment.

If you still want to work with resin, the consumer advice center recommends reading the instructions carefully, asking for a safety data sheet, not making children's toys or objects that could come into contact with food, and wearing gloves, a mouth and nose mask and safety glasses when working with the material.