Mumbai: FDA instructs vendors, shopkeepers to stop using newspapers for packaging food as the ink can be toxic

Representative image. File Pic

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Maharashtra issued orders in the Mumbai division instructing the street food vendors, sweet shops, bakery owners to not use newspapers to wrap food items, saying the ink used in the newspaper is harmful to customers.

In Mumbai, popular street food items such as vada pav, samosa, pakodas, poha, sweets, to name a few, are usually wrapped in newspapers by the vendors while giving a takeaway.

The Mumbai division of FDA also launched an awareness drive among the food vendors across the city before starting to penalise them.

Shashikant Kenkre, assistant food commissioner, FDA (Mumbai division), said, "The ink used to print the newspapers and magazines is made from chemicals. Wrapping hot cooked food in a newspaper is harmful as the ink gets imprinted on the food. We have instructed the vendors to use an alternative way to pack food or else we will take action against them."

The FDA, Maharashtra, inspected 1,718 vendors in Mumbai this year, of which 129 inspections were conducted in January 2022. The inspection included checking the label, quality of food, vendor licence and packaging of food.

Speaking about the harmful effects of the ink, Dr Honey Savla, consultant, Internal Medicine, Wockhardt Hospital, said, "Health hazards can come in various forms. The newspaper ink consists of components such as lead, naphthylamines and aromatic hydrocarbon. We have seen rising incidences of neurological, heart, lung, and liver diseases in addition to malignancies. These carcinogenic substances accumulate in the consumer's body over a period of time, leading to various ailments. Newspapers are also the carriers of various disease-causing germs, which add to the load of infectious diseases."