The Nation - News from Feb. 14, 1989

An environmental group asked the government to ensure that school lunch milk is not contaminated by dioxin leaching from the bleached paper cartons. The Agriculture Department, which runs the school food programs, said it was reviewing a petition filed by Greenpeace USA, and asked for advice from the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. Greenpeace said a recent Canadian study showed that dioxin, a byproduct of the chlorine bleaching process used to bleach paper products, leaches from the carton to the milk. The FDA plans to do its own survey of paper containers this year, a spokesman said.