Katuchef: Australians may be eating a credit card’s worth of plastic a week, and scientists now say one everyday kitchen object could be a hidden source

You probably saw the headline. Researchers at the University of Newcastle, in a study commissioned by the WWF, estimated that the average person may be ingesting about a credit card’s worth of plastic every week, roughly five grams. It made the news right across Australia, and most of us had the same reaction: where on earth is it all coming from?

Bottled water. Salt. Seafood. We’ve heard those. But scientists have now flagged one source that almost nobody suspected, sitting on the bench in nearly every Australian kitchen.

Your plastic chopping board.

In 2023, a team publishing in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology measured what actually comes off a plastic board as you chop. Their finding: a single board can shed somewhere between 14 and 71 million microplastic particles a year. Put in plain terms, that’s around 50 grams, about ten credit cards of plastic a year, scraped off your chopping board and straight into your dinner.

There’s a graphic phrase that keeps coming up on kitchen forums, and it stuck with us: “I prefer to avoid eating plastic when I can feasibly avoid it.” Fair enough.

Why an old board is worse than you think

Every stroke of the knife scores the surface

A brand-new board is smooth. But each cut leaves a tiny groove, and over months those grooves multiply into thousands of fine cut marks. As one home cook put it after inspecting her heavily used boards: “Every one was clearly missing material. It’s going somewhere, and it’s going into the food.” With plastic, what’s missing is plastic.

Those grooves become a place germs can hide

Meat juices, moisture and food residue settle down into the fine cut marks, and once a board is scored, that surface is very hard to fully sterilise. As people describe it in their own words: “the meat juices get into the pores… it can’t be sterilised.” A quick rinse simply doesn’t reach where the problem lives.

And the odour that never quite leaves

Anyone who’s cut a lot of garlic, onion or raw meat on the same board knows the feeling: “the smell doesn’t leave, no matter how well you scrub, a little bit is always there.” Salt and lemon, baking soda, a vinegar soak, people try everything, and the board still carries it. That lingering odour is coming from residue trapped in a porous, scored surface.

Where does it all end up?

Not on the bench. It ends up in whatever you’re cutting, the fruit for the grandkids, the veg, the Sunday roast. Which is exactly why so many careful cooks, once they read the research, quietly decided the old board had to go.

The catch: swapping to “natural” doesn’t solve it

A fresh plastic board buys you a few weeks, then it’s scored and shedding again.

Timber and bamboo look reassuringly natural, but they’re porous too. They soak up moisture and juices, they can crack, and a wet wooden board that never fully dries is its own hygiene headache. (In the same lab tests, wood actually shed more particles than plastic, the difference being those are wood fibres, not plastic.)

So you’re left going in circles: board to board, scrubbing more, worrying more, while the core problem of a porous, scored surface shedding into your food never actually goes away.

Why a GP actually recommends Katuchef board?

Dr. Sarah M., a Sydney GP, has fielded plenty of worried questions about microplastics since the Newcastle study. She now recommends a non-porous board like KatuChef.

We put the question to Dr. Sarah M., a Sydney GP, who has fielded plenty of worried questions about microplastics from her patients since the Newcastle study broke.

“I tell people the same thing I tell myself,” she says. “Don’t panic, but do the easy things. You can’t control the plastic in bottled water or the ocean. You can control what you chop your family’s food on. A worn plastic board is one of the few sources that’s completely within your power to remove, and it’s a five-minute swap.”

Her practical advice lines up with the “safer board” guidance you’ll see from consumer groups: the goal is a surface that’s genuinely non-porous, one with no grooves for bacteria to settle into, and one that doesn’t shed plastic into your food as you use it. That’s a short list of materials, and it’s where titanium keeps coming up.

Which brings us to KatuChef, the titanium cutting board.

Below, we look at why the same material used in surgical tools and professional kitchens has become the quiet upgrade for Australian families who read the research and decided they’d rather not keep eating their chopping board.

The “secret” of KatuChef lies not in any coating, but in the material itself: pure titanium, a metal that is also used in medical technology and professional kitchens.

• Non-porous surface: Titanium is extremely smooth and doesn’t absorb liquid, there are no micro-cracks or grooves where meat juices, bacteria or colour can become trapped.
• Sheds no microplastics: Unlike plastic or coated wood, a titanium surface doesn’t flake particles into your food as you chop, no matter how often you use it.
• Nothing for odour to cling to: Because the surface is sealed and non-porous, that garlic-and-onion smell has nowhere to soak in. A rinse, and it’s gone.
• Built to last: Titanium won’t warp, stain, crack or peel the way plastic, timber and coated boards eventually do, so one board can replace the drawer full you keep rotating.
• Cleaning in seconds: Thanks to the hard, smooth surface, hot water and a little washing-up liquid are usually all it takes, after that, it’s hygienically clean again.

In short: instead of scoring grooves that trap germs and shedding plastic into your dinner, you’re chopping on a stable, non-porous titanium surface that’s made to last.

KatuChef is made from 100% pure titanium, no coatings, no plasticisers, no BPA, nothing that can leach out. So there is nothing to end up in the fruit you cut for the grandkids or the veg for the Sunday roast.

You can cut anything on KatuChef:

✅ Fruit and veg for the grandkids

✅ Meat, fish & poultry

✅ Bread, cheese and deli meats

✅ Onions, garlic & strongly colouring foods

Titanium is taste-neutral, does not react with acids (e.g., lemon, tomato) and does not release any substances into food. The smooth, non-porous surface is easy to clean with hot water and a little dish soap, no special cleaning agents, no scrubbing, no worries about microplastics or peeling paint.

The result:

No harmful residues from the board in your food, fewer germs, and a cutting board that can be used every day with confidence, even in sensitive family kitchens.

How to clean Katuchef?

KatuChef does not require any special cleaning products or extra care. After cutting, simply rinse the board briefly with hot water, add a drop of washing-up liquid, and wipe it down with a sponge or cloth, that’s it. No grooves where food can get stuck, no swelling, no oiling, no sanding. If you like, you can also put KatuChef in the dishwasher. Important: Afterwards, simply dry it off or let it air dry, this will keep the titanium surface hygienically smooth and ready for the next use.

Where can I buy the KatuChef cutting board?

KatuChef is available exclusively from the manufacturer in the official online store. It is not sold on Amazon, eBay, in supermarkets, or on other platforms.

Important: Due to the success of titanium cutting boards, numerous cheap copies have appeared on the market, visually similar, but often made of inferior metals or coated materials that cause the same problems: abrasion, scratches, and germs.

So it’s worth making sure you get the original KatuChef titanium board, and ordering only from the official store, which is also where the 30-day money-back guarantee applies.

Why not in the shops?

The team explains it simply: selling through the big chains would mean adding on middlemen, warehousing and shelf-space costs, and pushing the price up to cover them. Selling direct keeps a genuinely non-porous board within reach of ordinary families, not just people with money to burn. That, plus the guarantee, is why they sell it themselves.

A titanium board isn’t a $19 impulse buy, but it’s one board instead of the plastic ones you replace every few months, and it’s backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it on your own benchtop and send it back if it isn’t for you.

“Demand for KatuChef has been exceptionally high since the microplastics story broke,” a spokesperson for the brand says. "Every board is precisely milled, deburred, and the titanium surface is checked before it ships. The material and finish have to be right, or it doesn’t go out. For us it’s about quality, not quantity, so KatuChef can occasionally sell out. If it’s unavailable in the shop, it’s because a new batch is being made, not because we’ve cut a corner.”