Flex and Effects

Umbra on plastic bottles and BPA 13

Dear Umbra,

I've been hearing a lot in the news lately about the dangers of certain kinds of plastic bottles. What's the lowdown?

Thirstily,
Ginger
Littleton, Colo.

Dearest Ginger,

Always happy to be your source for the lowest lowdown around town. Today's lowdown: Don't use plastic bottles, and avoid canned food.

All the latest plastics hullabaloo is over bisphenol A, a component of many plastic products. Serious Gristoholic Readers have known for years now that BPA, in its role as an endocrine disruptor, probably poses threats to public health. These readers have been easy to spot at recent cocktail parties: they lounge about looking self-satisfied and say, "Oh, I knew that already," when the topic of toxic plastic bottles comes up. Hence our motto: "Read Grist today, woo untold strangers with your wisdom tomorrow."

The properties of BPA lend a hardness and durability to plastic products, and it is (or was) in many now infamous consumer items, including baby bottles and clear Nalgene bottles. (Nalgene has now forsworn BPA, as have Camelbak, Toys R Us, Playtex, and others.) It also lines food cans, such as might hold soup or beans. It leaches from all of these places into our food and then into our bodies; tests have found it lurking in our bodily fluids. In laboratory animals, low-dose exposure to BPA has been linked to cancer, diabetes, fertility problems, and behavior disorders.

Over the past decade, scientists have brought increasing pressure on the U.S. government to revisit its BPA-exposure standards, because said scientists keep finding probable harm at lower doses than the EPA safety level. The topic has been a continuing drama, especially over the past year. Some highlights: the U.S. government hired a firm to assess BPA toxicity, the firm ignored all the anti-BPA scientists and was later found to have links to the plastic industry, the FDA was forced to show its hand and found wanting in scientific rigor (shock!), and the National Toxicology Program came out with a tentatively anti-BPA draft. Then Health Canada opened a comment period on banning BPA, and major retailers and producers starting abandoning the BPA ship -- all within the last few months.

The Environmental Working Group has a detailed timeline of BPA studies and political developments, which you may enjoy reading. You can also find info by searching Grist for "bisphenol A" -- even just searching Ask Umbra for "bisphenol A" will get you scads of resources. I've put a few of the most relevant Grist links in this handy box for you:

Grist links on BPA

Ask Umbra on which plastics to avoid

Ask Umbra on plastic and kids, and a guide to buying non-plastic baby products

A Grist primer on chemicals, fertility, and reproduction

Listen to Grist's Sarah Kraybill Burkhalter discuss BPA on NPR

Let me summarize a few of those resources and tips here, once again, so that we can all sleep easier at night. (Unless you have young babies -- even switching to glass bottles may not convince your child to sleep through the night.)

Avoid using plastic bottles, plastic food containers, and canned food. Find your own way to mitigate the loss of convenience this causes you. Glass, stainless steel, frozen foods, and fresh foods are all useful resources for a plastics- and BPA-free diet. BPA is not in every plastic, but each plastic has its own problems (cheery Grist article on chemicals may help you here) -- at least avoid vinyl, and any "Lexan" or No. 7 plastic that does not explicitly lack BPA. You would find such explicit lack of BPA via news from the manufacturer or, increasingly, on the packaging.

If you must use plastic, choose No. 1 PETE, No. 2 HDPE, No. 4 LDPE, or No. 5 PP, and eschew the rest. Tips on avoiding the nastiest plastics are found in handy guides such as those put out by Environment California, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and the Environmental Working Group.

Scientists are still debating the toxicity of BPA. I advocate making a change in your plastics use now, if you haven't already -- not because the science is definitive, but because it looks like it will become so, because it's not often that a potential toxin turns out to be safe, and because there are additional reasons to reduce plastic consumption and eat fresh foods over canned foods. I'm out of room, so if anyone needs to know the additional reasons, please write in.

Dramatically,
Umbra

 

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Send your green-living questions to Umbra.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

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  1. redambrosia99 Posted 1:41 am
    12 May 2008

    bah!What's a girl to do to get a good light weight water bottle!?  Behold the evil little 7 on the bottom of my water bottle! humbug!

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  2. lostdogcanada Posted 1:48 am
    12 May 2008

    Health Canada and BPAIt should be noted that Health Canada has only banned BPA in baby bottles, and even then it stated that it was safe enough for use in the bottles, however it was just too close for comfort.  Canada has NOT banned BPA in any other bottles.  Here is the link for their responses:
    http://www.chemicalsubstanceschimiques.gc.ca/challenge-defi/bisphenol-a_e.html
    Also, while Nalgene and Camelbak have discontinued their use of BPA, they have done so NOT because they were unsafe, but because of the massive public panic against them.
    Just thought I should clarify a few points that were left out.

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  3. caniscandida Posted 3:45 am
    12 May 2008

    Thirst-o-rama!There is nothing at all the matter with that model water-drinker's figure, is there.

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  4. latenac Posted 4:05 am
    12 May 2008

    canned tomatoes?So no canned tomatoes either? I can live without plastic water bottles and canned foods except canned tomatoes and canned red curry paste. Good lord.

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  5. 2wheeler Posted 4:19 am
    12 May 2008

    stainless steel water bottlesI decided to get some stainless steel water bottles for each member of my household a couple months ago, after reading about this for a while. The bottle still has a plastic cap but it is durable and washable.  I was having trouble getting another bottle clean after a while and thought the metal would be better for that purpose also.
    As with most other chemicals, the presence of heat (hot liquids, or heated cans) would be likely to release more of the offensive BPA from the plastic into the container's food contents.  This article is the first one I've seen to link BPA to canned food liners.  I understand that canned food is packaged under heat (pasteurization) and that makes me concerned about leaching of the BPA into the food, be it canned fruit or canned tomatoes or soup concentrate (to name a few in my own pantry).
    Thanks Umbra. Must seek out frozen foods and invest in better labeling/organizing system for my  basement chest freezer.

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  6. marigoldmind Posted 5:14 am
    12 May 2008

    Eden Cans BPA-free?I have read that Eden uses cans that have the least amount of BPA for tomatoes and none at all for their beans.  Here is what they have to say:

    Tomatoes -

    http://www.edenfoods.com/faqs/view.php?categories_id=6#fa ...

    Beans -

    http://www.edenfoods.com/faqs/view.php?categories_id=5#fa ...
    I don't work for Eden, by the way :-) I just like their products.

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  7. latenac Posted 6:11 am
    12 May 2008

    still has BPAs in it thoughI agree veggies are better fresh or frozen. But there are staple pantry items that are affected by this that you can't get frozen and some you can't get fresh without significantly increasing costs and/or time. Thinking coconut milk, anchovies, canned tomatoes, curry pastes, canned legumes, etc. Given the economy and the already almost elitist issues with local and organic food it's rather cavalier to just say - let them eat fresh or let them eat frozen. Organic food purchases are already dropping precipitously as gas prices go up. If we really want to convert other people to wanting to do what's best for the planet and even our own health the assumption that people aren't living from paycheck to 4 days before the next paycheck is going  to have to go.

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  8. acollins Posted 9:08 am
    12 May 2008

    Questions From Snake In The Grass Nuclear EngineerQuestions for My Environmental Friends (In the

    Interests of Coming to a Mutual "Meeting of

    Minds"):
    1) How do we keep several hundred million poor on

    this planet from starving, and yet keep taking

    more crop land for biofuels or environmental

    preserves?
    2) Can we stop climate change, using strictly

    renewables, without nuclear?  I.E. I would like

    to see numbers on crop land acreage taken out for

    solar, wind, etc., & how is this numerically

    feasible, without messing up our planetary

    food supplies.
    3) You seem to have strong concerns on nuclear

    safety.  What are your feelings on the South

    African pebble bed modular nuclear reactors

    (PBMNR), which are allegedly passively safe?

    (I am aware, on the PBMNR, of the concern about

    accidental burning of the pebbles, due to acci-

    dental exposure to air.  This is being worked on,

    by R & D on oxide ceramic coated pebbles, such

    as magnesium oxide).
    4) Have you folks considered nuclear waste dis-

    posal in space, or into the sun, via the

    Slingatron hypervelocity ground to space launcher?
    5) Have you considered putting nuclear reactors

    in large diameter earth orbit, beaming power

    down to earth via microwave, and associated

    space waste disposal?  This supports putting

    industry in space, outside our biosphere, and

    addresses mineral extraction from the minerally

    rich asteroids, to avoid mineral depletion of

    earth resources.  These mineral resources are

    a million-fold as large as all of the mineral

    resources of earth.
    6) Have you considered uranium / plutonium cycle,

    recycling, to extend uranium fuel supplies to

    several hundred years, and associated nuclear

    proliferation concerns?  This is currently

    illegal in the US (Jimmy Carter), but the

    French have offered to recycle our fuel for free.
    7) Have you considered uranium / thorium breeders,

    with resultant 600 - 2000 year world energy

    supplies at 10 times current generation rates?
    8) Have you considered the proliferation issues,

    of every country in the Middle East currently

    building, or planning to build, nuclear reactors

    either for energy production, or optimized for

    plutonium production, as in the case of Iran?
    9) Have you considered the rapidly developing

    technology of accelerator - driven sub-critical

    micro (house supply) or mini (small industrial

    facility) uranium or thorium nuclear reactors,

    which can be currently built by any individual

    or small group, without access to "critical

    nuclear materials"?  Turn off the accelerator,

    & presto, the reactor shuts down in milli-

    seconds.
    10) Have you considered accelerator - driven

    systems, for 'burning up' long-lived actinides

    & fission debris, into short-lived radioactives

    or stable isotopes?
    I.E nuclear technology is in its earliest

    infancy...
    Regards, Art Collins, Retired Nuclear &

    Aerospace Engineer

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  9. gooseduckstevens Posted 4:31 am
    13 May 2008

    Nalgene still OK!The old school Nalgene bottles (cloudy white plastic) that have been used for years in chemistry labs around the world are made of #2 HDPE plastic.  They are not as easy to keep clean and not quite as durable, but no BPA and you still have that classic Nalgene design.  

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  10. ceperron Posted 5:48 am
    13 May 2008

    Soda cans?A good authority (a scientist who studies BPA) told me that it is also used in the lining of soda cans.  Does anybody know if this is true?  I don't drink soda anyway, but thought it would be interesting to know.

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  11. daisyalea Posted 7:58 am
    13 May 2008

    What now!?!?I have read all of Umbra's articles on BPAs... but this article goes even further and now I am totally at a loss.  If I can't use plastic food containers, what in the heck am I supposed to take my home-made organic lunch foods to work & school in?  I have tried glass containers and wound up with with a 25 lb lunch bag.  I can use glass containers at home, but as a full-time employee and full-time student who has to cart 3 meals worth of food around with her all day - what the heck am I supposed to use???  

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  12. gidespeach Posted 5:47 am
    15 May 2008

    NONSENSICAL !"In laboratory animals, low-dose exposure to BPA has been linked to cancer, diabetes, fertility problems, and behavior disorders."
    Why do we continue testing on animals when we don't pay attention to the test results?!
    Since when do corporations do right just because of public outcry? Nothing wrong with plastic, eh?

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  13. chadcarson Posted 2:14 am
    20 May 2008

    the anti-tupperwareSigg, the Swiss aluminum bottle maker, also makes some aluminum food containers. Maybe that's the anti-tupperware you're looking.
    http://www.mysigg.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&C ...

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