Eventually, it seems to turn out that every consumer product is killing you — from cooking utensils to menstrual care products, and literally the kitchen sink. Now, one of our most beloved creature comforts is getting its own heel turn.
A new analysis by the European Union-funded ToxFree Life for All project took a look at 81 headphone models from producers around the world. The results were pretty grim: every single model tested contained substances considered hazardous to humans, including bisphenols, phthalates, and flame retardants. Not even premium brands like Bose and Sennheiser received a clean bill of health, culminating in what ToxFree calls a “complete market failure.”
Most alarmingly, researchers found Bisphenol A — an industrial chemical linked to infertility, obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes — in 177 of the 180 total samples taken from the 81 devices.
“These chemicals are not just additives; they may be migrating from the headphones into our body,” Karolína Brabcová, a chemical researcher with ToxFree told the Guardian. “Daily use — especially during exercise when heat and sweat are present — accelerates this migration directly to the skin.”
Per Brabcová, the chemicals don’t pose an “immediate health risk,” so it’s not like your ears are about to fall off. The real danger here comes from long-term exposure to the “chemical cocktail” present in headphones, especially for vulnerable groups like expectant mothers or young children. “There is no ‘safe’ level for endocrine disruptors that mimic our natural hormones,” as Brabcová explained.
“Given the prolonged skin contact associated with headphone use, dermal exposure represents a relevant pathway, and it is reasonable to assume that similar migration of BPA and its substitutes may occur from headphone components directly to the user’s skin,” the researchers wrote in their report.
This is why, despite finding relatively low traces of most chemicals in the tested headphones, the researchers are using their findings as a rallying cry to call for sweeping bans on endocrine-disrupting chemicals in consumer products. Though chemicals like BPAs are selectively banned in the EU, critical loopholes remain that allow the substances to re-enter the market through recycled plastics.
“We urge EU policymakers to abandon the ‘substance-by-substance’ approach and implement comprehensive bans on chemical classes to prevent regrettable substitution and ensure safety is a market standard, not a consumer burden,” the researchers concluded.
More on chemicals: GLP-1s Are an Environmental Catastrophe
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