More plastic news

A friend sent this link asking me for my opinion. My response was "Well, As far as anyone can tell those are safer. The problem comes in a couple things: 1) you don't really know – I mean the FDA still says BPA isn't an issue. 2) even if they are safer, they still break down over time and we don't know what they are breaking down into."

I did more research, the link was from 2003. I found this article from just this last week. It says the FDA is criticizing its statement about BPA safety. Studies have come out linking BPA to diabetes and heart disease. The article refers to a finding of BPA in the blood of "92% of American over the age of 5" (this wasn't attributed to anything in the article, but it doesn't seem too far off to me).

Then I saw this on Enviroblog from yesterday. (BTW, if you don't visit EWG and Enviroblog often – run don't browse! your way there now {well after you finish reading this}). Recently a university lab group discovered chemicals leaking from plastic lab equipment and ruining a drug experiment.

BPA? Nope! Quaternary ammonium – an anti-microbial agent and oleamide – a plastic softening agent. And they didn't come from #7 plastic, either. Rather from polypropylene or #5 plastic ( a previously "safe" plastic). How much #5 plastic do you have? I have (soon to be gone) a ton.

Like the article writer I am getting pretty darn tired of hearing about things that are in products that is being kept from me. Tell me what you're making the stuff from and what its risks are and I'LL decide if it's worth the risk for me and my family.

I think the FDA and other governmental agencies need to get to doing their job of protecting the public and start paying attention to science. We've had an 8yr drought of scientific thought and I for one cannot wait until it's back! Hopefully, we can get past the damage done.

So I'll be getting rid of most of my plastic, even the none #5 stuff, my view is why risk it? We got rid of a ton of stuff with the BPA issue, but I kept the random sour cream containers and such. I just felt it was wasteful to recycle those right away without reusing them. Now, I'll just put them in the recycling bin as I try to think of other sources that don't include plastic.

Wish me luck.