Saturday, April 19, 2008

BAD PLASTIC


So Health Canada is investigating bisphenol A and it's effects on humans. There is a 60 day public consultation in effect. Apparently this chemical is used in a lot of hard plastic items, included bottles. It releases an estrogen-like chemical, and is particularly bad when heated. I guess the world has used this forEVER so plastic manufacturers delcare it to be safe. The recent science supports that it increases cancer, particularly prostate, breast and ovarian. It's carcinogenic! You know, like cigarettes? Maybe we could all just shove a smoke in the baby's mouth and carry on with the day? I'm sure we could get the assholes that make smokes to add some pretty colours.
So, my response to the plastic companies is something like this-while it's been used to 50 years, cancer rates have gone UP over the past 50 years, perhaps, just maybe, plastics can be linked to this???


So we went and bought some Born Free bottles yesterday. With nipples the glass ones are $20 each for 9oz servings, but I'll pay that for peace of mind. Here are our pretty new bottles.


Note 1: Health Canada never does ANYTHING first. American mommas-check it out, you might want to consider some research if the FDA is dragging their asses.
Note 2: A lot of water bottles have been recalled as well. Don't heat anyone's food in plastic. Buy a few extra plates. Great excuse to shop, off I go to IKEA.

3 Comments:

Blogger holly* said...

we went through this last year. hell, san fransico tried to BAN all plastic bottles there for a while. we too use born-free bottles (not for much longer though!) as well as STAINLESS STEEL sippy cups.

i just wanted to add a couple things to your post, if you dont mind.
1. the reason heating a plastic anything is bad is because the heat speeds the deterioration of the plastic. as the plastic deteriorates, it releases the chemicals that it contains thus contaiminating the milk/juice/water/food. this goes for all types of plastic containers!
2. from my research all (i hope) level 5 plastics (look at the bottom on yous plastics and there should be a little number inside the recyle doodad) are BPA free. what this ment for me was that "disposable" glad ware and the likes are "safe" for me to use still and that i needed to replace all of our sippy cups.
3. i do not put these bottles in the dishwasher. one of those just in case things. BPA is put into plastics to make them more resilant from what i've read, so, in theory, the BPA free products are weaker. i handwash in scaulding hot water and boil once a week or so, but we have had no problems with these bottles cracking or anything.
4. sippy cup alternatives are key too! bornfree makes a sippy cup, but they SUCK imo. we choose to use the thermos foogo line. they're attractive, stainless steal (i avoided alluminum thanks to scary POSSIBLE links to alzheimer's), and i think the straw cup actually helped my son learn to competently use a straw long before i expected him to. the straw is made of a flexible silicon so it seemed easier for him to create suction around the straw (vs. plastic straws).

anywho, yay for parents being concerned for what they're exposing their children to!!!

April 19, 2008 at 11:58 AM  
Blogger KiS said...

Thanks for that info! Since your married to a chemical engineer, you might be "slightly" more qualified to discuss plastics. You know, just slightly...

April 19, 2008 at 3:30 PM  
Blogger Kristi said...

Good Info. We've switched over too.
I read on safemama.com that plastics 2, 4 and 6 are okay too. But check those #'s out b/c i could be remembering wrong....I'm glad it will be easier to find the safer alternatives now and there will be more selection available.

April 20, 2008 at 9:37 PM  

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