Townfolk who often go to supermarkets to buy food may notice that many fresh vegetables are tied together by colourful tapes. Shop assistants cut apart the bits wher the vegetables touch the tape, and wash them as you would do at home. A test shows that the formaldehyde content in those parts that touch upon the tape exceed the norm tenfold!

Xu Lan, an associate professor of apllied chemistry at Xi Nan Universitys Faculty of Chemistry demonstrates that the main component of the tape used for tying vegetables in supermarkets is polyacrylate. If people cook vegetables that have tape residue left on them or use solvents to clean these vegetables, a part of those chemicals could disolve, and if such vegetables are consumed for a long period of time, it could have a poisonous side-effect on the digestive system and liver or kidneys.